Salt-Breaker
by Team Otters
Summary: In Rome, Poseidon is called Neptune. In Westeros, they call him the Drowned God. Percy Jackson washes ashore in the Iron Islands and the Ironborn don't know whether to revere him or murder him. If only they'd known the cautionary tale of what happened to Atlantis.
1. Chapter 1

When the wars of the gods were done, I left to explore the hidden places left in the corners of the world, roaming over and under the sea with the blessing of my father Poseidon. The divine ichor in my veins sustained me through the breathless depths, but there were places where the ocean went on forever.

In the black abyss I delved ever deeper. My power was a wrenching weight in my gut. The pressure of water around me was beyond reckoning, held back from crushing me by divine birthright alone. My fingers brushed the rocks at the base of the ocean, and the crashing of waves sounded in my ears like an echo of my father's voice. Poseidon Earth-Shaker! Perseus Wave-Breaker! The ocean floor cracked open with thunder beyond the grasp of Zeus himself, and I dove through salt and shadow and time.

Eventually the sea pushed me up and out, casting me onto a rocky shore. Sharp pinpricks bit into my face and chest where I lay on the pointed edges of stones or shells. The heat of the sun on my back was the glare of an alien god after so long submerged in the lightless depths. I tried to breathe, and the flavour of oxygen was pain. As soon as air hit my lungs I realised that I was broken, churned up and discarded by the abyssal pressures beneath the sea.

The warm salty liquid I lay in wasn't a tidal pool on the beach, but a growing smear of blood. I tried to cry out, but could not, so I wept. My tears left behind tracks of soothed skin, the saltwater of my own body healing me even as I lay dying.

Footsteps sounded on the beach nearby.

"Look at this here!" called out a rough voice, thick with an unfamiliar accent. "Someone's been making offerings to the Drowned God without you, Damphair."

A stick was jammed into my ribs. I would have screamed if I was able, but my muscles were torn and lax so I could only lie there limply and stare as it was used to lever me onto my back. Two men stood over me, one in the familiar - if somewhat archaic - garb of a sailor, and the other in roughspun wool robes dyed all the colours of the sea. The man in robes had the dour bearing of a priest, coupled with the roughness of a sailor. He was the one who had turned me over, using a crude wooden club which he struck me with again in the chest. His hair and beard hung low to his waist, braided with seaweed.

"Shoddy work," said Damphair, scowling at me and the sailor both. "If you wish to make an offering of life, you choose a man who is hale and hearty so the Drowned God may feast on the vitality of his spirit. If you wish to make an offering of death, you charge the iron price and cast his body into the waves. This? This is nothing. Neither alive nor dead. Whichever fool captain decided to make this sacrifice has blessed his voyage with mediocrity."

Damphair spat, turning his head to one side so the spit landed on the earth, not in the sea.

"Will you bring him back to life?" the sailor asked eagerly. The sailor was younger than the priest, perhaps around my age in his mid-twenties, although it was hard to tell. His body was packed with muscle where the priest was lean and raw-boned. Although the priest had a predator's grace where the sailor was still burdened with some of the clumsy softness of youth. Damphair frowned, glaring at me for a time.

"No," he said at last. "I will not breathe life back into a drowned man only for him to die of his wounds. It would be a mockery of the Drowned God's gift." He stabbed his club down into my chest again, and then nodded. "See how he cannot move aught but his eyes? The Deep Ones may have his bones to make their bread, and be done with it."

Damphair bent down, and grabbed me beneath my shoulders. The sailor followed suit, picking up my legs, and they carried me until they stood waist-deep in the surf.

They tossed me out into the water, and the waves closed over my head.

At last I could breathe, oxygen flowing straight through my skin into my blood, restarting my heart and inflating my lungs. My whole body shook and spasmed wildly, the effects of healing such grievous wounds so rapidly causing my limbs to flail and eyes to roll.

The tide threw me out again, and I was dashed upon the shore with force. I gasped at the impact, and choked out ragged breaths.

"That's twice the God has rejected him," observed the sailor. "Think you that someone has just left on a cursed voyage? Farman, mayhaps, or Wynch?"

"No," said Damphair slowly, drawing the word out as he strode closer to me. "No Ironborn has been so accursed since Euron Crow's Eye was banished. This is something else. He is not so badly injured as I had thought."

"The sea washed away the blood, is all," suggested the sailor.

"Perhaps. I was certain - no matter. We did not throw him far enough. The Drowned God is owed his dues. WIth me. Properly, this time."

The men heaved me up and carried me away once more. This time my limbs responded, and I was able to shift my body at their touch. Could I have fought them? Perhaps. I was still weak to the point of death, but I was no mortal. But the point was moot. I wanted the sea, and all it's rejuvenating powers.

Again, my hurts mended and wounds closed, and I was washed ashore. The motion of the waves deposited me neatly at Damphair's feet.

I felt fantastic. Whatever my ordeal beneath the sea had done was healed. I lay there, still and breathing, relishing the easy motion of air through my lungs.

"Again?" asked the sailor, sounding bemused.

Shorelines are never rigid boundaries, as any seaman knows, but both men turned with expressions of shock as the tide pulled back from our location, forming a horseshoe crater of exposed sand reaching ten paces in every direction.

"His will is clear," said Damphair, and knelt by my side. "You may see me revive him after all, Baerag." The sailor - Baerag - stepped back respectfully.

Damphair leaned over me. His breath stank of old fish. His lips moved towards mine, and I realised what was happening. Oh, hell no!

I called out for Anaklusmos, and she was in my hand a moment later, three feet of edged bronze. The tip of her blade pressed into the priest's neck, and he halted his attempt to give me the kiss of life. Praise be to Poseidon.

He stared at me from a foot away, expressionless. The sailor whistled.

"Gods be damned, you barely touched him!"

Aeron Damphair turned to look at the sailor, ignoring the way that his movement drew a thin line of blood where his skin rested upon my sword. My eyes widened at the sight. Was he a monster in disguise, then? No. I sensed no malice from him. Whatever this place was, it followed different rules. I couldn't sense the occluding presence of the Mist around us to separate the mortal and mystical worlds. The line between man and god and monster was less clearly defined here than it was back home.

"It wasn't me, you oaf," barked Damphair. "He's been touched by the Drowned God."

The priest, who introduced himself as Aeron, and the sailor Baerag guided me up the beach towards a ramshackle port town. I didn't need the assistance, but I was glad of the company. My sense of direction was keener than a compass when at sea, but this place was strange to me. I could tell North from South and East from West, but when I tried to plot a route home my power failed me. I was marooned on a distant island, worlds away from Olympus.

Perfect. I was hoping for a bit of peace and quiet when I set off exploring the ocean.

Damphair handed me a waterskin. I lifted it to my lips and drank deeply. The water inside was cool and sweet, soothing my throat and refreshing my mind. I was overcome with a ravenous thirst, and gulped down mouthful after mouthful. It intoxicated and delighted me like wine, until at last the skin was empty and I gasped for air.

"Sorry," I said, handing it back to Damphair. "I guess I was pretty thirsty." He gave me an odd look, and then placed a weathered hand on my shoulder. He squeezed it, briefly and then stepped away.

"Think nothing of it, lad," he said, his voice gruff.

"We'll slake your thirst in here," said Baerag, pointing towards a large wooden building with heavy shutters. Damphair sighed, but didn't argue. "I bet you'll be hungry after drowning like that. Melys always has a pot of fish stew on the go."

Before I had a chance to respond, my stomach rumbled. Baerag grinned, and took that as my agreement.

"'Ware the tavern!" he cried out, throwing the door open. "Here comes Lodos Twice-Drowned risen again!"

Half the tavern burst out in mocking laughter. A man who sat by the door spat on the floor. A scar at the edge of his mouth hooked his face into a cruel leer, but his voice was friendly enough.

"Has old Damphair got you drinking seawater again?" he asked. Baerag ducked his head and muttered a response. The scarred man roared in laughter. "He has, hasn't he? Drinking seawater won't make you holy, it'll just make you as mad as he is!"

I glanced at the waterskin tucked back into Damphair's belt.

"Was that seawater I just drank?" I asked. Damphair nodded. Huh. He seemed to be taking the fact that I'd just necked back over a pint of saltwater with surprising calm. Almost as if he'd expected it. I caught him studying me with an intense expression, and felt the same pressure on the back of my neck as when under the scrutiny of my old teacher Chiron. They were nothing alike, and yet somehow I was reminded of him.

"Here, Lodos! Are you gonna take a seat or just stand there staring like a witless fish?" demanded the scarred man. Baerag shoved me onto the bench beside him, and took a place opposite.

"Why are you calling me Lodos?" I asked.

"Isn't that who you are?" asked Baerag, leaning forwards eagerly. "I listen to the priests. I know my history." Damphair snorted, and cuffed him on the back of the head.

"Lodos lived nearly three hundred years, you blithering imbecile. As you would well know had you listened past your first pint"

"Three hundred years for men is nothing for a god!" argued Baerag, the scarred man beside me shaking his head in derision. "Tell me truly, are you not Lodos Twice-Drowned, son of the Drowned God?"

"No!" I exclaimed, holding up my hands in protest. "I'm Percy Jackson." He stared at me hungrily, expectantly, and I hesitated. Surely their Drowned God was Poseidon. Between surviving the waves and drinking seawater I'd given myself away, although I was curious to know who these men were to recognise the signs. Grudgingly, I sighed and finished what he was hoping to hear. "I'm Percy Jackson, son of the Drowned God."

Baerag whooped and banged his fist on the table until every eye in the room was on us.

"The Drowned God has sent his son to us!" he shouted. "Percy Jackson!"

The men filling the room were coarse, swarthy sorts. Fishermen, sailors, and pirates all. Superstitious types, perhaps, but that's never the same as gullible. A hard-eyed man with the stale breath of a career drinker stepped up to our table.

"Prove it," he said.

Aeron Damphair struck him down with a blow of his driftwood club. He fell to the ground, scattering tankards from a neighbouring table as he went. The room went silent. I flinched inwardly, and prepared for a brawl to break out.

"He has," declared Damphair. "To me."

I curled my fingers around the space in the air where my sword would be, should I call her. Anaklusmos was almost tangible in my grip in these moments of violence when the world swam into focus.

But that was the end of it.

To my surprise, the tavern took Damphair's statement and settled down to mutter among themselves. I had expected blood to be spilt. Well, more blood than had already been spilt, I supposed, as I watched the fallen man be helped back onto his feet. He was bruised and wobbly. I suspected a concussion to go with his split lip, at least.

Damphair sat, taking Baerag's wrist in an iron grip.

"Have you no discretion, sailor?" he hissed.

"Have you none?" I demanded straight back at him, pulling his hand away from Baerag. The young sailor objected and raised his palms in a conciliatory gesture. His eyes were wary, locked onto me as I pushed Damphair away from him. His hand crept closer to his sword to defend Damphair, even though I was attempting to defend him from the priest.

Such is the irony of my life. Or perhaps it was just sad. I released him, sitting back.

"I'm grateful for your help, but there was no cause to hit that man," I said from between gritted teeth. "You're lucky we didn't get jumped by everyone in here."

"Nobody would dare harm a Drowned Priest," hissed Damphair. Harritt snorted, and took a gulp of beer, cringing slightly at the taste of the dregs at the bottom of his tankard.

"Nobody would dare harm The Drowned Priest," he said. "Any of your boys tried walloping a club around like that, and we'd have them on the floor before you could sneeze."

"We, Harritt?" asked Baerag worriedly.

"Aye, lad, we! Me, and should as be you, too. Just because a man knows the stories about our Lord God doesn't make him right. Iron men should defend their brothers."

"Even from God?" asked Damphair.

"Especially from the Drowned God! He's our god, and I worship him every bit as much as you do. Don't say that I don't," said Harritt fervently, and in that moment I believed him. Trust someone who is part god to know a genuine worshipper. Harritt met my eyes as the thought crossed my mind that here was a true follower of Poseidon. I felt the man's presence like a ghost on the edge of my mind, and startled.

Harritt grinned at me, the closest equivalent to a reassuring smile that a hardened sailor was willing to give a stranger in front of so many witnesses. "But he's a right bastard sometimes," he continued," and if he turns on one of us we should stand axe to axe until he turns his favour back on us."

"That's dangerously close to blasphemy," said Damphair, fingers clenched tight around the edge of the tabletop in a white-knuckled grip.

"It's the truth," I said. Damphair spun to look at me so fast that he whipped me in the face with hair, seaweed braids and all. I spat it out in time to see him glaring at me, daring me to speak. Okay, old man. If there's one thing I dare to do, it's blaspheme. I've got a lifetime of experience at that.

"The gods are treacherous. They don't mean to be. Well, not all of them, but that's how they are. Their moods come and go like lightning, and blessing turns into damnation in an instant. The men who fight beside you, the people on your team, they're with you in fair weather and in foul. A god will look away when he's bored, or distracted, or caught up in whatever celestial affairs they have to manage."

I cleared my throat, awkward under the scrutiny of the priest. Badmouthing my dad to one of his priests? What a trip.

"You, of all people, say that?" asked Damphair. "Son of the Deep, most blessed of all men?"

"Most blessed and most cursed," I muttered under my breath. The priest couldn't have heard, but he narrowed his eyes anyway. "Don't get me wrong, Dad's helped me out in all kinds of ways. But when he couldn't be there, my friends stepped up to watch my back. Even against the other gods. They won't respect you for bowing down. That's what they expect from mortals. But fight back when they cross you, draw your line in the sand and refuse to be beaten, that's something they might respect."

"So defy the gods to win their favour?" asked Baerag, hesitant. "I don't think that's how it works." He trailed off uncertainly.

"No!" I said, frustrated. I wasn't explaining this very well. Harritt laughed, and clapped his tankard against the wooden table.

"He's telling you to be your own man, Baerag," he said. "Thank the gods when they bless you, fight to survive when they curse you. And who do you fight beside?" he asked, raising his voice to address the surrounding tables of men, all of whom were listening in attentively.

"The Ironborn!" they roared back. Harrit grinned, and banged his tankard again on the table. The other sailors around him did the same, enthusiastic enough to spill drinks in every corner of the room.

The island, I later discovered, was named Pyke. Crown jewel, as much as there was such a thing, of the Iron Islands. Damphair was the leader of a local cult which worshipped a particularly bleak incarnation of Poseidon.

"The king will want to see you," said Harrit, the man with a scarred face.

"What? Why would some mainlander down in King's Landing care about who walks the Iron Shore?" asked Baerag. Harrit shook his head.

"No. Not Baratheon. Our king."

"We lost the rebellion," said Baerag. Damphair sat still, but cleared his throat to interrupt when Baerag next moved to speak.

"Harrit has the right of it," he said. "Lodos was a harbinger of the Ironborn rising up against the soft inland kings. Why should his brother be any different?"

I had no idea who Lodos was, but this was hardly new to me. Despite the unfamiliar surroundings I began to relax. This was the same old story unfolding again. Rock up, new in town, and already everyone thinks they know everything about me because they met one of Dad's old demigod bastards.

"My concern," mused Harritt slowly, sloshing the beer around in his mug. "Is that Lodos declared himself king then walked himself into the ocean with his pockets full of rocks when things didn't work out so well."

"I am not Lodos," I said. The three other men at the table gave me assessing looks, all of them with something different in their expressions, but all with an undercurrent of hunger. Damphair, intense and composed. But hungry for something. Baerag, eager, young, hopeful. Hungry. Harritt, more sedate than Damphair and more worldly than Baerag, yet still with something about him that put me in mind of a starving wolf.

"You will need to convince my brother of that," said Damphair.

I frowned, setting my fork down in the bowl of half-eaten stew.

"Your brother?" I asked.

"Balon Greyjoy. Lord Reaper of Pyke. The would-be king of the Iron Islands. He will not suffer a rival to live, and when he hears that the Drowned God's son has washed ashore, he will assume as many here did," said Damphair, raising his voice so that all around us could hear. "That you have come to seize his throne."

"I have not!" I exclaimed again, making sure my voice was loud enough to carry to any who might have overheard Damphair's words.

I didn't even know what these Iron Islands were like, beyond the name. To land on foreign soil and immediately stake a claim to the throne might be in keeping with some of my more famous cousins, but that had never been my style.

I sighed, and pushed the bowl away from me. Frankly the stew was revolting. You'd think that living by the sea would lend people towards seasoning their food with salt, even if nothing else. Apparently not.

My surroundings were poorer than I had thought at first, built out of shabby materials. There were no hints of modern conveniences - no plumbing, or electricity, or anything of that nature. That worked for me. I was used to operating on the furthest edges of civilization anyway.

What was there here to be king of?

Stacks of rock rose up from the sea, topped with grey-black blocks of stone so coarsely cut that it was hard to tell where the cliff ended and the castle began. It was an ugly, ungainly thing, spread across three barren pillars of rock and the main island of Pyke itself.

It looked like the structure had almost finished collapsing, left sprawled and clinging across the bay as a man might stretch out his limbs to break a fall. It was a wonder that the castle stood at all, yet out of the mess of collapsed wall and eroding cliff rose sturdy keeps, adjoined by crescent moons - stone bridges suspended over the water.

I could sense the pressure of the sea upon the stone. The castle pushed back.I reached out with the part of my power which gave me influence over earthquakes, and touched the foundations of the castle. I wasn't looking to topple it, just exploring the land with my senses. And yet the sensations my ability returned were slippery and confused. The rock felt strange, oily and volatile in my grasp.

This castle was anchored in place by some black power I had not yet encountered.

I shrugged, and continued to follow the Ironborn up the trail to the gatehouse. I had walked into Tartarus itself. A creepy castle which had lasted past its sell-by date was nothing in comparison.

It was growing dark by the time we reached the gatehouse. There was a stretch of wall broken by a fanged portcullis, and a tower on either end. It looked as if it had once been a boundary wall for the castle grounds, but that land had all been swallowed up by the sea.

Unfamiliar stars hung above the keep, confirming what I already knew. I was very far from home. After sailing across the world, navigating by celestial bodies was second nature to me, and I was certain I could have identified any location on Earth from the night sky, even without the divine ichor which fuelled my instincts.

They were brighter and closer than the stars back home. I wondered how much of that was just from light pollution, or if I now stood in a part of the cosmos where stars were packed more densely.

I raised a hand, and could scarce fit my hand in the emptiness between stars, they were so populous. In spite of myself, I smiled. Perhaps the sky had looked this way back home, way back when Poseidon was my age.

Damphair called up to the gate guards. I hardly paid attention to his words, stolen away as they were by the wind. I doubt they even heard what he said, and only raised the iron portcullis because they recognised his particularly distinctive appearance.

"Come, Percy," he insisted. A gull screeched overhead, and the wind tugged at his long hair, making him look particularly wild, almost inhuman. "You will meet my brother, pledge not to raise your sword against him, and only then will you be safe on these islands."

I looked out over the sea. There were other islands visible in the distance, and I fancied I could see the smudge of the mainland on the horizon, but perhaps I was lying to myself. No matter how far my demigod eyes could see, there was still the curve of the Earth to block off distant sights.

Now there was a thought. I could tell I was no place on Earth. Was this even a planet? Some other realm like Olympus or Hades, or a world more distant still? I filed that away on the list of 'things to ask Dad about' later.

The smells of bread and meat hit me first, and then the oven-blast warmth as the door to the great hall of the central keep swung open. I reeled back at the sudden heat, and then lurched forwards eagerly at the thought of food. Not fish, thankfully. After that awful stew I would gladly never touch seafood again, my heritage be damned.

"This is as good a time as any," said Harritt from behind me. "The king is feasting with his bannermen. Well-fed, well-drunk, and in welcome company."

"Aye," agreed Damphair. "In the seat of his power and at the heart of his strength, he'll not frighten at stories of Lodos come to steal his throne. He'll laugh and welcome you and dismiss this as the ravings of the lunatic priest."

Baerag clutched at Damphair's elbow like an eager puppy. His fierce look and strong body were all belied by his stooped stance and subservient attitude, but it was an endearing image for him.

"There aren't many who say you're crazy any more," he said. "Even the lords in their halls know you can breathe life back into the dead. When they speak their empty insults they do it out of fear, and their men repeat what they say without believing it."

Aeron sighed.

"Yes, Baerag, I know." The younger man wilted at the dismissal, and Damphair frowned at him. "It is about time you started paying attention to these things," he said finally, as a limp and lacklustre concession. Baerag perked up at the priest's words nonetheless, and I wondered what could have happened for him to be so keen a follower of Poseidon. No, rather, of this priest of the Drowned God, more than the Drowned God himself.

Baerag sniffed the air.

"Is that beef?" he asked excitedly.

The savoury smell of meat hung thickest in the air, perhaps mutton or goat. Hearty fare that was as much work to chew as to butcher in the first place. My stomach growled, and I was overcome with the oddest craving. Not for meat or cheese or even a good old fashioned hamburger, but a craving for bread and salt.

Damphair strode forward, the three of us lagging behind.

Obviously used to the sight of Drowned Priests in their ragged robes, none of the men around us so much as turned their heads. The crowd was dressed better than the peasants we had passed outside, but not by much. There were soldiers in haphazard armor, boiled leather and chainmail, pieces of scrap and lamellar here and there. Perhaps half a dozen individuals stood in full plate, out of a crowd of nearly three hundred, to my best guess.

At the heads of the tables sat what I guess to be the local lords. They were men of the sea, one and all. Some a little older, some a little fatter than their bannermen, but still clearly men used to fighting both the elements and one another. They were dressed much the same, although their armour matched better, and tunics woven from finer fabrics could be seen poking out from beneath.

"Lord Reaper!" cried out Damphair, nearing the table at the foot of the dais where Balon Greyjoy dined with his most favoured bannermen.

"Lord Damphair," Balon replied, placing a peculiar emphasis on the word 'lord'. The man to his left tittered, a fat, mercantile looking sort wearing more silk brocade alone than the rest of the table combined. To Greyjoy's right sat a teenage girl with a face as hard as any other Ironborn. Her nose was sharp, a little too large for her face, and gave her a hawkish appearance. She wore less armour than the men around her, but still wore a leather jerkin with plates of metal affixed here and there. She scowled at Greyjoy, and in that scowl I saw the family resemblance between her and Balon and Damphair alike.

"Did I not tell you that a time of omens was at hand?" declared Damphair, holding out his arms in a dramatic pose, fingers splayed outwards like the keeps of Pyke across its many islets. "The Drowned God has sent us his sign! His son! Brother, I bid you meet Percy Jackson, thrice returned from the waves, each time with our Lord God's blessing stronger upon him. He has drowned and breathed again, can drink the sea dry, and carries a sword of sunsteel to wield against our foes!"

"It's just bronze," I muttered to Baerag, who hid a smiled and hushed me. "Well, celestial bronze," I continued, even quieter. He wasn't listening, focused so hard as he was on the interaction between priest and king.

Balon's eyes flicked to me, his expression cold.

"It is time for us to carve a Driftwood Crown again, my brother," cajoled Aeron. "The Drowned God has blessed you with a holy warrior to cast off the tyrant's chains. Will you break bread and salt with him and be king again?"

The girl to Greyjoy's right sat upright as if she had been slapped. Her eyes were wide, and she grabbed at her father's arm. He shook her off, and continued to draw his sword. He stood, and pointed the blade at me. The metal was pitted and scarred from years of hard use and erosion from the salt spray of the sea. By the callouses on his hand and the surety of his movement, I could tell that Greyjoy had been the one who earned those scars.

"Another Lodos, Damphair?" he asked quietly. "I think not. Kill them all!"


	2. Chapter 2

At my best guess, three hundred men sat within the hall. All of them were armed and armoured for battle. There were a handful of servants dotted around, here and there. Say another twenty. Perhaps fifty, if there were more servants skulking out of sight, soldiers wandered off to grope a maid or piss in the sea.

Three hundred and fifty opponents.

I faced worse odds when I was still a child. Still, it was unlikely that my companions would be getting out of this alive. I cast a glance over them. Damphair in his robes, looking outraged. Harritt with his easy charm, resigned. Baerag in his innocence, hurt and betrayed.

Nobody bothered getting up from their seats. They carried on eating and drinking, eyes riveted on us. From all around the hall, guardsmen stationed in doors and corners began to walk towards us, blades drawn.

The guards were hampered by the layout of the hall. Long trestle tables divided the open space into narrow corridors. A group of men gathered together at one end of the main aisle in which we stood. More joined them, until they had sufficient numbers to feel safe in their attack. Not even ten. Not nearly enough.

The Ironborn were not quick to approach. Even with our scant numbers, there was fear in the eyes of some. Whether fear of Damphair's wrath or mine, I couldn't say. Which men before me saw a mortal, and which saw a god? Not all of them were afraid, either. But those men sauntered towards us with the ease of a predator approaching crippled and cornered prey.

They were fools, all of them.

Violence takes place in the space between heartbeats. Victory goes to the most daring as often as it does to the most skilled.

I drew Anaklusmos from the air, and she shone a burnished gold in reflected firelight. Some of the soldiers hesitated, or cursed. At least one muttered a quick prayer which rang in my ears.

Damphair hefted his club threateningly.

"Stop this madness, Balon!" he bellowed. His pleas fell on deaf ears. Balon stood like stone, resolute and imposing. He held the position, blade pointed at us in a death sentence. His hands were as steady as mine were when I swam. The steel did not waver.

I was certain I would be fine, but my companions worried me. They were only human, and I could only guarantee their safety so far. I studied the hall, deciding on pure instinct that their best chance of survival lay in a swift escape. If I could clear the way for them to leave, I could hold the doorway until they were clear. And after that - well, afterwards is always messy.

I broke into a dead sprint, charging at the approaching guards. A throwing axe cut through the air, but it was hastily done and flew a full stride clear of my head. I saw the trajectory spin out, destined to split the skull of some bystander. With a grunt of effort, I broke the momentum of my charge in another direction so I could knock the axe safely out of the air.

Now my path ran at the tables, not the soldiers, but I wasn't going to let the motion go to waste. I let my sprint carry me forwards, stepped up onto the table and pushed off in the other direction. The flat of my sword crashed into the side of a guardsman's head, and he crumpled. Even as the blow landed, I caught another in the throat with my fist, and spun back to drive the hilt of my weapon into a third man's nose. He went reeling back from the force, stumbling into another man and almost knocking him down.

I kicked the back of a leg out from under someone, ducked under the haft of a spear, and hamstrung its wielder. All this in the space of a breath. Six foes down so quickly only one man had been able to react. It was a shame to maim such a swift warrior, but I was playing for keeps, here. If I managed to get everyone out of here okay, perhaps I'd be able to come back and help heal him.

Yeah, right. The thought made me feel better about potentially crippling someone, but I knew the odds of being able to help after were improbably low. There's no Geneva Convention in the Iron Islands.

I drove Anaklusmos through a shoulder, twisted out of the way of a sword, and leapt to a new foe. They fell before me like the straw practice targets back at Camp Half-Blood; empty silhouettes of warriors compared to the strength of my sword arm.

My eyes met with the one who'd prayed, before. I could still hear the echo of his prayer ringing in the back of my head. He muttered the words again, jumbled and rushed from fear, but still deafening to my hearing. The words harried me like the shrieking of Hades' furies. A maul struck me in the back, but that pain was nothing compared to the rending of my ears. I thrust my sword at the frightened man, desperate to stop the wail of prayer which tormented me. In an instant I was awash with regret. He didn't deserve to die. My sword seemed to move towards him at a glacial pace - his fate and my guilt unavoidable, but torturously slow in approach.

He let go of his weapon and dropped to his knees, no longer a combatant but a supplicant at prayer.

The tip of Anaklusmos was driven through his girded leather armour, through links of chain and the green-dyed wool of his shirt. It struck his skin, and stopped. The blade rang like a bell, a pure, clear note which washed away the screams of prayer in my head.

Around me, the fight paused.

"Enough!" screamed a new voice. Balon's daughter.

She stood in front of her uncle, an axe in one hand and a long dagger in the other. A fallen soldier lay bleeding on the ground at her feet, and two more menaced her on either side. Baerag and Harritt stepped up to stand beside her, naked steel in their hands.

"We are not kinslayers!" she shouted, face red with anger. She kicked the fallen guard away from her, and he rolled with a moan onto his other side. "The Ironborn reave other shores, not our own!"

At her words, there was a susurration of muttering throughout the room. Men who had watched eagerly for the sight of blood were now uneasy.

"Our Lord God tests men with moments of madness, Balon," urged Damphair. "But he also takes the madness away to see what remains. Has the man survived, or has he just become madness incarnate?"

I held my breath. For a moment, there was a chance that all this would end. But then Balon vaulted himself over the table, scattering dishes carelessly, and crossed the distance to his family.

He struck his daughter across the face with the back of his hand. She turned her face to mute the impact of the blow, and took the impact with a cry, but she did not fall. It had not been a gentle touch. I was impressed by her fortitude now in more ways than one. Balon just grunted, and pushed her away, lifting his sword to Damphair's neck.

"Can you pass the test that Euron failed?" asked Damphair in a stage whisper that carried to every corner of the room. I saw the Ironborn lords around us react, and I saw Balon see them, too.

He said something to Damphair, too low for me to hear, and sheathed his sword. All this time, his expression never changed.

And so it was over.

I released Anaklusmos' hilt, and she vanished into the air. There were startled gasps from those few in the room whose attention was still on me. I smiled, just a little. That never get old.

"Sunsteel," whispered the man kneeling at my feet. I glanced down at him, at the hole in his armour just over his sternum, and my smile slipped.

"It's just bronze," I said to him conversationally. He flinched at the sound of my voice, but I carried on, speaking in the warm, hushed tones I might have used with a frightened horse. "Celestial bronze, if you want to split hairs, I suppose, but there's definitely no steel in her." I grabbed him by the elbow and lifted him up, as gently as I could manage. "What's your name, sailor?" I asked.

"Berryn, m'lord. I mean, your worship."

"My name is Percy," I said, doing my best reassuring I'm-not-a-monster smile. "I don't own any lands, so I'm not a lord." I didn't mention the 'your worship' part. I didn't have a clue how to begin tackling that. The prayer and worship part of being a god wasn't my area of expertise. I just hit monsters with pointy things until they stopped trying to hit me. And occasionally gods, or titans. Same deal, just scaled up.

"What is dead may never die," Berryn gabbled out, clinging to his mantra. "But rises again, harder and stronger." The words rang in my ears as the prayer had, only this time it wasn't unpleasant. It was more like the feeling of resonance from somewhere deep inside my gut, where mortal blood and divine ichor melded into one.

I felt the refrain tug at my power, and it rose like a tide following the moon. I stepped away as if in a trance, and knelt by the man I had crippled. Seawater spun in glossy threads through the air, and I was startled to realise that I had been calling it forth from the ocean outside. I placed my hands on either side of the weeping cut in my victim's leg, and wove the threads through flesh.

The wound closed, slowly, and the blood receded, drawn back into the wound by the same forces I was unconsciously applying to the water. The last speck of red disappeared, and my hold on the water dropped. It crashed to the floor, flooding a small section of the hall.

"The Drowned God wakes!" cried Damphair, thrusting his cudgel in the air. Baerag raised his sword in a similar salute, and, reluctantly, Harritt followed a moment later.

The man I'd healed stood, testing his weight. His face was as pale as Berryn's, but his eyes were lit with an inner fire.

"What is dead may never die," he said, his voice growing louder and stronger with every word. "But rises again, harder and stronger. The Drowned God wakes on Pyke tonight!"

Harritt came up to me, and held out a plate. It was a carved piece of driftwood, crude and clumsy. A heel of bread and a pile of salt sat upon it.

"By the king's invitation," he said wryly. The king himself, or rather the Lord Reaper of Pyke, stood a little distance away behind him. He had one hand on Damphair's shoulder, restraining him. The other was on his daughter's wrist, doing much the same.

Baerag hovered awkwardly between us, uncertain whether to stay with Damphair or move over to me. At last he broke - perhaps it was the presence of royalty which was too much for him, or perhaps it was the raw emotions of familiar disharmony.

"It's true, I heard him give the order," twittered Baerag, standing a little too close to both of us so that the three of us formed an enclosed huddle. I got the feeling he was doing it to dull the sensation of a hundred eyes on him. I could sympathise.

"Move, boy," snapped Harritt. His words weren't unkind, just urgent. "You're blocking his view. The king must see Percy accept guest-right. Means nothing with you loitering in the way like a stunned ox."

I tore a small piece off the bread. It was black and dense, definitely not wheat. Rye, perhaps? Or some mix of spelt and oats and seeds. I'm no baker, I was just guessing blindly. Clinging to the fact that some things, such as bread, were universal. Alien bread, sure, but bread varied the world over. Everybody mashed up grains and baked them. Everybody. No matter how far I'd travelled, bread was a comforting reminder of home.

Perhaps that was why it was used for this tradition. I wondered at it, making a display of sprinkling salt on the bread, and placing it in my mouth.

Squid ink. At the first taste, I knew. That's what coloured the bread. Damned if I knew what made it so dense and chewy, or what made that tangy flavour, almost like wholegrain mustard, but milder. As I said, I'm no baker. I'm just a travelling sea god, and I know squid ink when I taste it.

I could even tell that the ink came from a juvenile male, just shy of its full growth. It wasn't a local boy, but had hatched far to the south in the straits between sunny tropical islands. It had migrated north as it grew, and I tasted copper in the memory of it swimming through the aftermath of a naval battle between pirates, broken bodies floating between broken planks.

And then my tongue touched salt, and the hypnotic memories of the squid's life faded. I still remembered, still knew what it was to have been that squid, but the memories grew dusty and faded like an unloved book at the back of a shelf. The salt, instead, sharpened my awareness of my companions clustered around me, the lords arrayed on benches watching with their soldiers, the Greyjoys drawn taut as a bowstring.

For a fraction of a second I could have sworn that I could pick out who in the room worshipped the Drowned God, who truly believed, and who did not. That awareness faded, and then rose again on a second bite.

Like the memories of the squid, the intensity of the experience quickly faded, yet something stayed with me. There were men here and there, scattered throughout the room, who seemed more solid. More real. As if their substance was more to me than base matter.

It was almost like the feeling of being around other demigods, although muted to the point where it faded into the background noise of existence. I wondered if this sense had always been there, and it had taken the bread and salt for me to notice. Was I changing, here in this new place, or was I just learning more about who I had always been?

"Percy Jackson." The words were stones in the air. There was no doubt as to who had spoken, even before I turned my head to look.

"Balon Greyjoy," I replied, in even, measured tones. I tried to match his neutral cadence, but without the hardman posturing. I didn't need to impress anyone today. The fact that I was impressing everyone was largely incidental. Such is life as a demigod among mortals.

"My brother tells me you are going to give me my own throne," he said tightly. I shook my head, annoyed with Damphair and myself both. I saw this coming, and should have spoken out to stop it.

"Forgive me for saying so, but I've only met him today and already I find him to be quite - excitable," I said, pausing for a moment to search for the right word.

"Yes," said Greyjoy. And nothing else. He stared at me, searchingly or accusingly or both. I refused to wilt under the pressure of his gaze, and stared back. Eventually - that is to say, rapidly - I got bored of the macho pissing contest and broke the silence.

"I've only just got here. I don't know what these lands are, or who should rule them. Maybe I'll have an opinion one day, but I haven't had a chance to form one yet."

"Is that so? And yet you are of the opinion that you are the Drowned God's get. That's a statement bold enough for a king."

"Opinion?" I said quietly, standing in a pool of seawater in the middle of Greyjoy's feasthall. His eyes flickered down to the pool, and across the men I had fought. They lingered longest of all on Berryn, who had knelt and prayed, and almost as long on his friend who I had healed.

"Bold enough indeed," said Greyjoy, and stepped away. He raised his voice, so all around us could hear. They'd all been eavesdropping, of course, but now he was making a point to be heard. "You are a guest of House Greyjoy now that you have sat with us for bread and salt. You may walk among the Ironborn as if you are one of our own, eat at my hearth, and sleep in my castle. For as long as guest-right holds, you are a free man on Pyke, whoever your father may be."

"I wonder," called out the fat merchant sitting at Balon's table, his voice taking on the silkiness of a man about to close a sale. "They say the gods profane those who break guest-right. If you are of the God himself, would it be your hand which punishes the accursed?"

"Yes," I said, confused by the sudden turn of conversation. "Hospitality is a sacred bond of trust. For it to work, we all need to enforce it, men and gods alike."

"And what if you were the one who broke hospitality?" he asked, his voice thin and needling. "Would you punish yourself accordingly if it was your transgression? Turn that Valyrian Sunsteel back upon yourself?"

The thought made me dizzy. And angry. It was a barefaced accusation of deceit, or close enough to give the same insult. Anaklusmos was in my hand in an instant. No, for this deed better to use her English name. Riptide. It was visceral, savage. The correct animal response to such a challenge to my honour.

"Be silent, Caephus!" shouted Balon, of all people. The red mist began to fade from my vision, but my knuckles were still tight where I gripped my sword. "You reveal your southron ignorance in your whinging mockery. Sunsteel doesn't come from Valyria any more than your profits come through honest labour."

I breathed deep, in and out, struggling to calm myself. What was this sudden black rage? I had faced worse insults than that and laughed it off, but the merchant's words had cut to the bone. It was beyond personal - an instinctual reaction. Bread and salt, I wondered again.

Baerag placed a hand on my arm placatingly. I could see genuine fear in his eyes. Not of me, but for me. It was oddly touching from a virtual stranger, and that human connection cut through the last vestige of my wrath. I dispelled Riptide with a loosening of my grip, and nodded my thanks at him.

"You keep ill company, brother," said Damphair. Balon stormed back to the table, spitting in a brazier as he passed. The coals hissed, burning away the spittle in seconds.

"I know that well enough, Aeron," he said, sighing. "Yet here you are pressing more on me. Sooner or later, something has to give."

"Let it be the southron," he replied.

Balon gave Caephus an assessing look. The fat man fidgeted, gold rings sliding to and fro on pudgy fingers. He reached for his wine, and a ring fell off, rolling end over end on the tabletop with the noise of a spinning coin.

"Yes," said Balon.

The feast carried on for hours into the night. Our interruption hadn't dampened anyone's spirits so much as enlivened them. There was endless drinking and merriment. It reminded me of the festivities at Camp Half-Blood, had the camp been less of a training ground for demigods and more of a free-range medieval prison. I saw a few good-natured fist fights break out, tough men testing their mettle against one another. And just one ill-natured scuffle, which ended with both brawlers being taken down by ten men from the neighbouring bench, irate at being interrupted mid-verse in a particularly bawdy sea shanty.

Damphair had commandeered a trio of tables towards the front of the room, just a short distance below the high table where the Greyjoy sat with his kin and allies and lickspittles alike. Not one to fit in with what everyone else was doing, he had dragged the tables into a rough horseshoe, and bade us sit on the far side only, facing out into the room.

Soon he was holding court in his own right, a microcosm of the wider hall. Men came by to offer greetings and share news.

A vast bear of a man, easily six and a half feet tall, stood in the crook of our haphazardly arranged tables. He could have passed for a son of Ares at a glance, right down to the dour expression. He had one of those faces which seemed to be perpetually scowling.

"The Farwynd's ship was delayed," he reported, hands clasped behind his back like a schoolboy. "Half his casks of fresh water were soiled with piss and vinegar. The Farwynd is livid, and ordered the ship grounded until he finds the culprit."

Damphair nodded.

"Do you have an idea as to who it is?" he asked, in that tone people use to let you know that I know that you know that you know that I know.

"Yes," the man replied, his expression glum. "It was a brilliant jest. His son stuck a cock in my salt wife, so I stuck my cock in his drinking water."

Baerag slapped the table and hooted with laughter. I saw amusement on Harritt's face on his other side, and even an upwards quirk to the edge of Damphair's mouth, if I judged the shifting tangles of his beard correctly.

"Does he have cause to suspect you?" I asked, leaning forwards. The giant man shook his head morosely.

"He won't learn the truth until he's moored at Lonely Light, fifteen days at the very least with his departure now delayed."

"Then what has you so worried?"

Baerag coughed for my attention.

"Percy, this is Andrik the Unsmiling. He doesn't - well, the name, you see?" he said.

"At all?" I asked.

"My face doesn't move that way," said Andrik, and shrugged. "It's good. My enemies see a fearsome warrior, and my iron brothers are forced to listen a little more carefully to my words to be sure of my meaning."

I wondered at what could have caused this. An old injury, or sickness, perhaps? The gods only knew there wasn't going to be much in the way of medical care around here. Or maybe the whole thing was a clever fiction to help him win a warrior's epithet and a fierce reputation. Part of me hoped it was the latter, and I smiled at the thought.

"All this begs the question," said Damphair, drumming his fingers on the table. "Why are you telling me this? The Drowned God doesn't hand out forgiveness for a confession and a candle left burning at the foot of a statue like the greenlander gods. I won't pass word onto Farwynd, but I won't mediate this squabble for you, either."

Andrik strode forwards, leaning in to Damphair's face with knuckles built like hammers pressed onto the tabletop on either side. The wood groaned under the sudden weight.

"When Gylbert Farwynd and his wretched brood of seal-men are on their way, I'm going to kill my wife."

I froze, instinctively opening my hand, ready to call my sword if needed. I had no idea what was going on here. Spousal homicide was a thing among mortals everywhere, but they could generally be split into two categories - crimes of passion, where someone is carried away in the heat of the moment, and does something they regret. These were the ones you would expect to turn themselves in. The other side was premeditated, planned. Deliberate. Andrik was clearly stating his intentions here. Why would a murderer turn himself in before committing the deed? I was out of my depth here, in a foreign culture with strange ways, so I held my tongue and watched Damphair's response carefully.

"So kill her," said Damphair, sounding bored. "She's your salt wife, not mine. Since when have men asked God for permission to touch their own women?"

Not good. I tried to think of something to say, some way to cajole an answer to the question of 'what the hell?' out of the giant man. His face was still frozen in his deathly serious scowl, as it had been when joking earlier. Could this be another joke? I didn't dare take the risk. I had to play it cool for now, find out what exactly he was planning to do if I wanted any chance of stopping him.

If he suspected I was going to get in his way, he could just leave, and then I'd have no way to protect the woman but by cutting him down here and now. I'd do that, if it came to it, but I wasn't willing to pre-emptively execute someone just for voicing a threat.

And after that freaky experience with their bread and salt ceremony, I wasn't eager to break the agreement of hospitality. I had a gut feeling that it was a bad idea in ways which had nothing to do with how many men I could fight at once. I'd defend myself, sure, but I wasn't the one he was threatening. I wouldn't have spontaneously attacked him here anyway, but bread and salt took the option off the table completely.

What was a salt wife, even? Just the Ironborn word for wife? I was too ignorant here. The urge to draw my sword and order him to stop this bullshit was nearly overwhelming, but I tamped it down as best I could. The psuedo-ADHD which formed a demigod's battle senses made this a struggle, my thoughts jumping from one thing to the next, frustrating me and making me long for someone to fight, but I managed to hold back, and forced myself to listen.

"You don't understand," snapped Andrik, still looming over the priest. Perhaps it was just the tone of his voice changing my perception, but now his perpetual scowl had an air of threat about it, as if lit by some inner fury. "I enjoy my wife. She did not cuckold me. That poxy cunt Yohn Farwynd raped her while I was at sea and left his bastard growing in her womb, and now I have to kill a woman I care for to cleanse the stain on my honour."

I almost stood at that moment. What the hell was going on with these people? It fit, after a fashion, I supposed. Image was everything among this kind of men. They weren't thinking of an act of violence committed against the woman, but the slight to Andrik's reputation. A ridiculous way to frame events, but not exactly unheard of from my extended family tree. Damphair was the priest here. The moral centre of the community. Surely he wouldn't stand for this?

"Such is our way," agreed the priest, and his voice was so dismissive that the urge to hit him rose within me on a tide of disgust. "An oath sworn before God has been broken. Repent with blood and iron, or be forsaken in his sight."

"I know that, Damphair!" cried Andrik. "But I'm not going to slit her throat and belly with an axe. I'm going to drown her and the sealspawn she carries." He leaned forwards, even further, until his nose was almost touching the priest's. "And you can bring her back. You've never failed to bring someone back from the Drowned God's grasp."

Damphair just snorted in disgust.

"Andrik," interjected Harritt, leaning across Baerag to speak. "Stop wasting the priest's time. Go buy moon tea from Mother Heron and be done with it."

Andrik shook his head.

"She reddens and swells like a greenlander eating crab," he said. "I forced half a cup down her throat, and she was choking and gasping for three days. I fear the amount it takes to chase a child from her womb will kill her."

"So will drowning," I interrupted, unable to help myself. Back on the beach Damphair had tried to give me the kiss of life, I remembered. People brought back that way could suffer side effects like brain damage, or just plain die. Maybe I could improve the odds with my power, but the idea of experimenting with a life in the balance left the flavour of ash on my tongue. Harritt shot me a sidelong glance, and I couldn't quite decipher his reaction. He looked away a moment later, reaching for another drink.

Andrik moved from his hunched posture, standing ramrod straight at his full and imposing height. He stared down at Damphair, hands hanging by his sides but still clenched into fists.

"God has given his blessing and returned the drowned every time you have done the rite. She has to die, but can still rise again, harder and stronger. I am a pious man, priest. Help him hear my fucking prayer!"

The bedraggled priest stared back at the giant warrior unflinchingly, eyes sharp and grey like flint.

"You would have me subvert a sacred rite so you can slink away from your duty? For a salt wife?" hissed Aeron. "You pledged before He Who Drowned For Us that you would defend her with iron, keep her against bargains with gold, and that she would bear no man's child but yours. If your heart were not as soft as the fat outlander at my brother's table, I would call it blasphemous. No. Be a man. Kill your wife and her sealspawn as the Old Way demands."

I couldn't stand it any longer. This was getting resolved now. I needed to get us away from the crowd, speak to Andrik's wife, and take control of the situation.

It was a still night, and the waves breaking on the rocks could hardly be heard over the noise of the hall. I gathered a great wave, building it higher and higher, and stood. My seat rasped against the stone floor, but Damphair didn't seem to notice. He was locked into a frothing rant, now, eyes and hands open wide, and spittle flying from the corners of his mouth.

"And if that leaves you malcontent," he continued harshly, "you can take your grievance to Yohn Farwynd. Make an offering of his blood to the Drowned God, and keep the memory of his screams to warm your empty bed. I will attest that you have the right to challenge him, and nothing more."

All my frustration, all the pent up energy and drive to do something, was poured into the wave I built. I held it taut as a bowstring, and took aim.

I crashed the mass of water against the column of stone which supported the Great Keep. The sound of it was a thunder to rival Zeus in his blackest rage. The entire keep shuddered at the impact, and I realised that I'd put more force into the wave than intended, carried away in my anger.

There was a moment of silence as everyone flinched at once, struggling to catch up to what had happened, so sudden it had been. I stepped into that void like the first movement into combat, and my voice was as sharp as my blade itself.

"Damphair," I demanded. "Do he asks."

The priest opened his mouth - whether to acquiesce or argue, I had no idea because I drew up another wave, a dense fist of water, and struck the foundations of the keep again. The very walls shook. High overhead, a stained glass window shattered, and broken pieces of a merman fell around us.

"Traditions be damned," I said. "Fetch the woman. We're going to the sea. Together. Whatever happens there will happen because I command it."


	3. Chapter 3

Word spread like wildfire. It seemed that all at once, everyone was aware of what we were doing. Where we were going. Easily a score of Ironborn pulled themselves away from the festivities to follow us down to the shore, a mix of sailor, soldier, priest and noble. Balon set guards to watch us, eyes hard with suspicion. I don't know if he set his daughter in command of the men, or she simply seized them from him, but she led the pack at our heels.

Andrik the Unsmiling slipped away from the crowd, and came back with a woman who didn't look to be Ironborn. With nut-brown hair and olive skin, there was something Mediterranean, almost Greek about her looks. I wondered where she was from, and how she had come to live on the Iron Islands. Had she met Andrik on one of his sea voyages, perhaps, and eloped with him?

If that was the case, it was poor recompense for her trouble that he was going to drown her. I sighed in disgust. He didn't seem to be doing this for fun. He didn't want to kill her to salve his own conscience. He felt obliged to do it.

These children of Poseidon had lost their way. I looked around the mob following behind me. Firelight from their torches lit the way, reflected on the thousand edges of steel among them. Their faces were red from drink and wind, but eager, oh so eager. Were they coming to watch her die, I wondered, or in the hopes of seeing her come back?

At last we reached the shore. The same place where I had washed up, of all places. I caught Damphair's eye and he nodded in acknowledgement. We were right back where we had started.

He began directing the men who had followed us around the beach, instructing them to set their torches in a ring around us. They lashed them onto crude wooden poles, casting a pool of amber light out over the sea.

Most of the Ironborn hung back a respectful distance. Damphair, Baerag and Harritt stood with me, and I felt a strange possessiveness over them. I had known them a scant few hours, but they had accepted my presence among them, even knowing I was not one of them - either Ironborn or human - and we had drawn steel in defence of one another.

Maybe I had been exploring the world alone for too long. I had left to travel in the hopes of being left alone, yet still here I was, beset by a yearning for companionship.

I saw Berryn's face in the crowd, the frightened guard who had stunned me with his prayer earlier. Beside him, the man I had healed stood gingerly, favouring one leg.

Andrik was some distance away, speaking in hushed tones to his wife. I motioned for the others to hold their ground, and went over to him.

"Damphair's the best there is," he cajoled her. "It's perfectly safe. Every man in the Iron Fleet has been offered to the Drowned God. Many of us twice. You'll be in and out, and that'll be this matter done with."

She sighed, and uncrossed her arms, reaching up to tug on his sideburns in a fond gesture.

"I know that, you great ox," she said quietly. "That's why I suggested this."

A chill ran down my spine. What? This was even more messed up than I had already thought. I halted, still far enough from the couple that they hadn't seen me yet. We were at the outer edge of the pool of torchlight, and their attention was all wrapped up in one another.

Suddenly, Andrik grabbed her by the upper arms, bowing his head. His whole stance crumpled, shoulders hunching inwards and making the giant man seem smaller than me.

"I could just be a fisherman. It's an honourable trade, Helwren. Still on the sea. Bring in fish for you and our boys." His voice was thick with hope. She pushed his chin up, squeezing a bicep with one hand.

"The greatest living warrior the Ironborn have, mending nets? No. It would destroy you," she said. She was about to say something else, but she noticed me, and stepped back, behind Andrik.

Funny how she would hide at my approach, yet console this giant warrior and try to coax him into killing her.

"Why would you suggest this?" I asked.

"And why not?" she snapped. "Do I have no honour because I'm not Ironborn?"

I winced. Oh dear. This would have been a difficult situation back home, but with little to no knowledge of the local culture or attitudes, I stood no chance of brokering the topic delicately. Well, it didn't really matter. I reassured myself with the knowledge that I'd have blundered around gracelessly and insulted her no matter what, and decided to go with my usual blunt approach to sensitive topics.

"When Farwynd raped you he stained his honour, not yours," I attempted haphazardly. She laughed. There was no humour in it. It was high and mocking, like one of the gulls which flew overhead despite the lateness of the hour.

"He barely got his cock in me before I took his eye out," she said. "This is that bastard Greyjoy's fault."

I cocked my head, looking to Andrik for an explanation.

"Aye, she gouged it right out of his skull," he boasted with no small amount of pride. "Saltiest wife any Iron man has, you mark my words."

Not the part I was hoping he'd explain.

"Farwynd wanted to topple Andrik's reputation as the greatest of the Ironborn," she clarified for me, a little quicker on the uptake than her husband. Salt-husband? I didn't know how their terms for marriage worked, still. "He didn't stand a chance in a fight, but he's sly and slippery as an eel in a trap. He decided that if he couldn't draw blood, he'd make him a cuckold. Still a victory to brag to his friends about, see? But I wasn't going for him, so he tried to press the issue."

"So there's no way the child is his?" I asked. What was the point in all this theatre, then?

"None," she said.

"It must be," insisted Andrik. "A woman always gets with child when taken by force. The seed has more strength behind it."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," I said.

Helwren shrugged in exasperation.

"I agree," she said wearily. "But that's what the Ironborn believe. And the Greyjoy insists that all men who sail on his vessel follow the Old Way, so here we are."

"There are noble traditions in the Old Way," argued Andrik. It had the flavour of a familiar argument to them, for she rolled her eyes and looked away.

"Some," she agreed, reluctantly. "Amidst barbarism, and illiteracy, and deliberate stupidity. Why can you not keep the tradition of your heritage, but grow to become more than it?"

"The Greyjoy says that if we don't follow the Old Way in all things, we're following it in none," said Andrik.

"He also says he'll forbid you the sea if you don't sail with him," she said. "Sail with him or be left on the rock like a thrall."

"The strongest warrior should be at the side of the Greyjoy," said Andrik, slowly, reluctantly.

"He's trying to control you!" she argued fiercely. "Don't you see what he's doing? He wants you under his thumb. He sees how people respect you. He fears your strength, that it might be used against him, so he's making you destroy yourself instead. He doesn't give a shit whose child is in my womb. He wants you beaten and broken, obeying his word in all things or else put out to pasture like a legless greybeard. If your axe isn't in his hand, he'll dull its edge, and you with it."

Andrik looked away, and from his posture I could tell her words had shamed him. Helwren drew herself upright, her bearing as noble and proud as any daughter of Athena I had ever met, and met my eyes with enough ferocity that I believed her when she said she had gouged a man's eye out.

"So that brings us here. To Damphair. And you," she said.

"Maybe I should speak to Greyjoy on your behalf," I suggested, desperately grasping for an excuse to get out of this maudlin performance. "I don't know what your Old Ways are, but maybe that's why I'm here. To put them to rights." A deep well of feeling came up in me, suddenly. Sentiment, frustration, and a jealous desire to see these people of the sea blessed with Poseidon's gifts, and not just his fickle cruelties. "I have some influence over these matters, even if he doesn't know it yet."

"No," she said firmly. "Greyjoy would just try something else. We need to face this head on." She took a deep, shuddering breath. A tremor went through the entirety of her body, and I saw how she clenched her teeth against each other to hold in some emotion that was foreign to me.

"I expect I'll lose the babe," she said, voice hollow. "But I've had three healthy sons already. Not all women can say as much when they first lose a child."

"That's our Lord God's test," said Andrik. "If the child survives, he's a saltborn child of a true marriage in his eyes. If he dies, he's an unworthy bastard."

"The child is yours," she stressed, hissing the words rather than raising her voice, cautious of the wind carrying her speech over to the crowd which waited in the distance for their spectacle. "But the shock of drowning will chase him from my womb, even as your priest brings me back. It's not an act of god, it's medicine wrapped up in superstition."

"What if there could be an act of god?" I asked. She looked at me in annoyance, no doubt thinking I bought into the same superstitions as the rest of them. I flexed my fingers, opening and closing my hands in synch with the motion of the waves behind me.

I didn't explain my plan to them. Andrik's face brightened - he still didn't smile, but some of the creases of worry eased - and he stood taller as we rejoined the others.

Damphair was reciting some story to entertain the crowd. I couldn't tell if it was history, gospel, or a tale of recent events. I supposed that when people here told of what happened here tonight, it would be all three.

As we entered the ring, he broke off in the telling of his story, uncaring for the disgruntled audience who cried out for him to finish the tale.

"Are you prepared?" he asked.

"I am," I said, and he gave me a confused look. Oh, right. This wasn't supposed to involve me.

"Yes," said Helwren. Her voice wavered, even as her gaze stayed stalwart. I saw a tremble in her hands, and then she crossed them, burying her fingers in her sides.

"God watches us from his watery halls," said Damphair, raising his voice again in that storyteller's cadence, loud enough to carry to the mob arrayed around us. "Here, by the sea, we stand as one: he who drowned for us, and we who drowned for him. Today, we offer another soul to him. If she, or the child she carries within, is found worthy, he may choose to return them to us. If either one is found wanting, both will die."

I flexed my fingers again, matching the rhythm of the waves. Or did they match the rhythm of my hands? I tried to ease my mind into that particular sensation which came with using my powers, reaching out to touch the waters of the sea with my mind. I didn't move them, not yet. This was going to be delicate work, not like the usual wide-area destruction I would wreak with my powers.

Damphair spat on the sand, and grabbed Helwren, shoving her roughly in front of him. In the violence of the motion I saw that he was still unhappy to be doing this, although he wasn't voicing any complaints. She stumbled, almost falling, but Andrik caught her.

As one, the four of us moved into the surf. Damphair paused when the water was only ankle deep, yanking hard on Helwren's arm to bring her to a stop as well.

"No," he said, firmly. "Wait on the beach. This rite is between the supplicant and the Drowned God."

Andrik stepped back obediently. I hesitated. Damphair gave me a long, hard look.

I considered stepping back. It was probably the sensible thing to do. All the attention would be on the priest, so I could do my thing in the background with nobody any the wiser. It was probably the polite thing to do, trusting my elder, the representative of the local community.

I have never been sensible or polite.

"You can wait on the beach this time," I said, putting a hand on Helwren's shoulder. "The Drowned God listens most closely for the sound of my voice." It was an empty boast, yet as I heard the words spoken aloud, I felt a faint prickle of pride. It had taken years for me to admit it, but I knew my father loved me as much as he did any of his children. More than most. If I called, and he was able, he would answer.

But I wasn't going to call for him today, and I didn't need Damphair doing it, either. Tonight I would stand in his stead. Yeah, I just deputised myself as the god of the sea.

Damphair nodded, and retreated silently to the beach. Andrik gaped at me for a moment, and then began to turn around to follow.

"Andrik, wait!" Helwren cried out, suddenly. She reached out for him, and her face shone pale with fear in the firelight. "It has to be Damphair! He's the one who has experience doing this. This stranger can't have his skill!"

"That stranger," shouted Damphair, from the beach, "is the son of the Drowned God. He has chosen to offer you to our lord his father. Be grateful and accept your fate. You shall have none other."

The men on the beach let out whoops and cheers. I took Helwren's arm by the elbow, and she pulled away, turning their cries into mockery, into laughter. She attempted to run back to the beach, to her husband, but the water around her ankles slowed her stride and I caught her easily.

"You're mad," she wept. "You're mad or lying and I'm going to die so you can pretend to be someone important for a night."

"It's the truth," I said, but she wasn't listening. I pulled her along, deeper into the water. She resisted, fighting me as a cat would, tooth and nail and writhing to break my grip. The calls of the audience turned into cruel jeers. Inwards, I was revolted. I didn't want to humiliate and manhandle the woman like this. I was trying to help her.

There was nothing to be done but get it over with.

I pushed her onto her knees.

"Don't do this," she begged.

"I'm not going to drown you," I said, completely truthfully, and then shoved her face down into the water so that she was completely submerged. I kept my hand on the back of her head, holding her in place as she flailed and struggled.

The laughter on the beach grew louder. I frowned, and chanced a look back at them. Damphair and Andrik both wore sullen expressions. Baerag, Harritt, and a handful of others seemed excited. Even from this distance I could see the anger in the Greyjoy girl. Her right hand was on the handle of her axe, and a dirk was in her left. Actually drawn. By the intensity of her stare, I imagined that she was hoping to sheathe that blade in my body.

I sighed. I wasn't doing this for fun.

A minute passed, and then yet more time still, with Helwren flailing and fighting me. Her movements grew weaker as the air in her lungs grew thin. She was holding her breath, doing her best to hold off the inevitable.

I leaned forwards.

"Stop panicking and breathe," I urged. I saw her lips moved as she answered me on reflex, no doubt calling me every awful name under the sea. Bubbles flew out from her mouth as the last of her breath escaped her, and a scream of rage was muffled by the water between us.

And then she breathed in again, unable to resist the basic biological impulse to take in air. I focused, letting my awareness of the ocean narrow down to the smallest possible point. I made a blade of my will and forced the water to break down. Bubbles formed as I dredged the ocean for the air contained within its solution.

Seawater rushed into her mouth, liquid flowing to fill the void - and then stopping. Reversing. I pulled the streams of thousands upon thousands of tiny bubbles towards her, forming a thin veil of air on and around her face. Her chest rose and fell. She breathed.

She didn't stop fighting me, though.

"Stop panicking!" I repeated, hissing the words with some urgency, because the people on the beach could undoubtedly see her still wriggling about like this. "Be still. Focus on breathing. Take a deep breath, as deep as you can. Hold it for a moment, only a moment, and then let it out again."

By some miracle, she did as I asked. Distracted by the breathing exercise, she finally went still, and I groaned in relief. I took my hand away, and stepped back.

I couldn't trust that she was going to continue staying still like that. I considered reasoning with her, but I couldn't take the risk, so I pushed down on her with the pressure of the water itself, preventing her from moving. She was fine. She could breathe. She just couldn't move.

Being left paralysed underwater must be a nightmare for anyone who wasn't a son of Poseidon. I felt a little guilty about it, and hoped that she felt angry instead of afraid. At least then she could take it out on me afterwards.

I turned my back on her, and walked back to shore. When I was halfway there, I paused. This had to be believable. I looked back over the sea to where Helwren lay beneath the waves, and waited. I wanted to give it ten minutes, but with no way to tell the time but alien stars I didn't know how to read, I just waited for as long as I could until I got bored. At last, I made my way back onto the beach.

"So the Drowned God has cast his judgement," said Damphair solemnly. There was a gleam in his eyes which hadn't been there before. Was this his version of an 'I told you so?' I began to wonder, but my train of thought was cut off by Andrik's fist.

He punched me, a roundhouse blow crashing into my cheek like a freight train through a barn wall. It was the kind of blow which could split logs and break ribs even through armour.

I swayed, slightly, as if in a strong breeze.

"You killed my wife," he said, fists balled up at his sides. Interesting that he was attacking me with his fists and not his sword or axe. I wanted to ask him why, but that would ruin the moment.

"God killed your wife," said Damphair coldly.

"No I didn't," I said, in response to at least one of those statements.

I released the bindings around Helwren. She didn't move, and I realised that she probably didn't realise that she was able to. I let the bubble of air around her dissipate, and suddenly, unexpected, she inhaled the sea.

Her body jerked in response as she choked. There was a distant splash. She moved, and struggled, and at long last got to her feet for everyone to see. She was unsteady, and angry, and alive.

Of all people it was the Greyjoy girl who came forwards with a dry cloak, wrapping it around Helwren. Did they know each other? They must do, I reasoned, if Andrik was one of her father's favoured warriors. She glared at me with flinty eyes, but I was glad to notice her dirk was back in its sheath.

"Are you done with your games?" she asked, looking from me to Andrik to Greyjoy with all the judgement of a woman who lived in a world of cruel, capricious men. In that moment I felt ashamed. What I had done was for the sake of Helwren, not myself, but I felt ashamed nonetheless.

"This is no game, Asha," said Damphair. She snorted, and held Helwren tightly.

"Tormenting a salt-wife for a crowd's entertainment sounds like a merry night to me," she said bitterly.

"Rock-wife."

Another new piece of marital terminology to learn. I sighed. Hera had aided me in my quests from time to time, but I can't say I had ever thought to study her domain in too much detail.

"What did you say?" asked Helwren, her voice hoarse from her ordeal.

"Rock-wife," repeated Damphair. "You were offered to the Drowned God. He accepted the gift of your soul and returned you to us. You are one of us."

"Damphair, what are you saying?" demanded Andrik, grasping his wife. Asha looked to object for a moment, but then released her, and she folded into her husband's arms. Swaddled in that cloak and buried against his bulk, she looked smaller than ever.

"I am saying," he said slowly. "That your wife is now Ironborn. Your sons are Ironborn. And she carries another Ironborn son inside her now."

Andrik squeezed Helwren close to him, eyes wide with disbelief. She made a noise into his chest, indistinct and muted. It wasn't an unhappy noise.

"That's not how this works," insisted Asha. She squared up to her uncle, eye to eye and almost as tall. He spread his arms wide in a disarming gesture.

"It wasn't," he agreed, and looked to me. "That's why I did not wish to do this. But he who drowned for us has spoken, and his will is absolute."

Asha spat on the ground like one of the sailors, and swore a curse.

"What if this was all a trick?" she asked. "We all saw what happened in the castle. He could have - I don't know, but something."

"We take matters to the gods when only they have the power to decide," said Damphair. "If Percy has the power to make judgement, does he not also have the right?"

I shivered. The wind on the back of my neck was suddenly chill, and I felt every eye upon me. In Baerag and Berryn, I saw reverence. In others, too. Not all in the crowd reacted the same. Some shared Asha's anger at Damphair's declaration that Helwren was now Ironborn, and others bore a contemplative look which frightened me with its intensity.

There was no coming back from this.


	4. Chapter 4

The gulls were keening overhead when I woke. It was the light before dawn, and men snored in the bunks all around me. It wasn't the sound of the birds which had woken me. I felt eyes on me. Someone here was only feigning sleep, staring at me.

I didn't especially care, but the gulls were too loud to let me go back to sleep, so I slipped out of the barracks, taking care not to step too heavily and wake anyone else.

There were footsteps behind me, and I spun around, Anaklusmos in hand. Baerag stood four feet away, three feet of which were taken up by razor-sharp bronze.

"What are you doing up?" I asked him evenly. He gave me a rather wan smile, or at least attempted to.

"I saw you get up," he admitted. "I couldn't sleep, so I followed you."

I sighed, and dismissed the sword. He began to relax. The sailor wore his heart on his sleeve, so I doubted he could have any hidden agenda. I was on edge after the events of the previous day. By the looks of him, so was Baerag.

"So why are you always following Damphair about?" I asked, beginning to walk down the corridor of the Bloody Keep. Baerag scurried to catch up.

"I wouldn't be a free man if not for him. My parents weren't real Ironborn," he said. "They were thralls, but they worked hard and were pious, so Damphair liked them. They took me to him when I was a boy and he offered me to God, made me a Ironborn and set me free."

"What do you mean by thralls?" I asked, not liking the sound of that. Being set free implied that he previously wasn't free. Not good. I was a big fan of freedom, generally speaking. Mount Olympus was in America now, after all.

Baerag gave me a confused look.

"You really don't know?" he asked. "How is it that you're the son of the Drowned God but you don't know anything about the Ironborn?"

"The sea is vast and full of islands," I said with a shrug, avoiding the question. He seemed to accept it easily enough. "But you haven't answered me," I said, forever the hypocrite. "What's a thrall?"

"Serving work is beneath the dignity of a true Ironborn," he said. "But it still needs done, so when we go on raids we sometimes capture people, bring them back," he said.

"You take slaves?" I said, shocked. I hadn't seen anyone who looked like a slave, but what did a slave look like? There were no manacles around wrists or collars around necks, but how much of that was I imagining from fiction, and how much was real? I had no idea. Maybe just the threat of hundreds of armed Ironborn around them was enough to keep them from revolting.

"No!" cried Baerag. "We do not take slaves!" His face had flushed red, as if I had genuinely insulted him. "Thralls are servants, not slaves."

"What's the difference?" I was genuinely curious, not testing his argument. I had a vague notion that servants got paid and slaves did not, but his reaction was strong enough that this wasn't just a matter of semantics for him, I could tell.

"Servants are people," he insisted, strong emotion in his voice. "Slaves are property, bought and sold for a price in gold. Thralls might work for their captor, but no more than they would have worked for their previous lord. When we take a thrall, we're not enslaving anyone. They have the same station in life as they did before, just on the islands instead of wherever they lived before."

"And if they object to being made thralls?" I asked, looking into Baerag's eyes. He looked away, into the point in the air just over my ear.

"Well, there's a lot of things happening in a raid which they tend to object to," he said at last.

I sighed, and put a hand over my eyes for a moment. It didn't help, so I dropped it, and tried to ignore the headache which I felt coming on. So this place was exactly what I'd suspected it to be. A pirate kingdom. Just my luck.

The easy thing to do would be to leave. It would be so simple. I could be down at the shore and on a boat within the hour, if I ran the whole way. Nobody would stop me, even if they tried to, and what was it to me if a pirate captain lost his longboat?

This Drowned God was clearly Poseidon. Another aspect of him, perhaps a few steps on the other side of his incarnation as Neptune. That was why I couldn't just walk away. This was family was some kind of tangled mess going on around here with the Old Ways of the Ironborn and the religion of the Drowned God all muddled up with bloodthirsty politicking by the de-facto king of Pirate Island. Balon the Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke. It had an ominous sound to it.

If he was using Dad's name to compel men to kill their own wives, there was bound to be more going on as well. That could be the reason why I'd wound up here. Was this an accident, or had Poseidon made arrangements for me to come and help him get his house in order? Another on the list of things to ask him. I made a note to go seek him out later, when I got some peace and quiet. We needed to talk.

"Where can I find Greyjoy at this time of day?" I mused aloud. Baerag perked up, like a dog being told to fetch. Ah. That was helpful.

Twenty minutes later, we were climbing the winding spiral stairs to the top floor of the Kitchen Keep. The first four floors of the keep stank of fish, and then the next one stank of death. The source of the smell, as it so often was the case, was a man lying in his sickbed. A wooden bedpan poked out from beneath it, and quite clearly showed that he was very sick indeed. I gagged at the sight as much as the smell. Baerag looked as green as the ink of his tattoos.

I contemplated using my power to toss the foul liquid out the window, but the idea turned my stomach. My power was an intrinsic part of me. The act of picking up a dying man's shit with it would be like holding the shit in my mouth.

Asha Greyjoy sat at a desk beside the bed, holding a quill pen to a sheet of parchment. So that makes one person on this island who can read. Maybe one and a half, if I count myself. Dyslexia is a bitch. Still, better than I'd expected, and the sight was a welcome promise that these people weren't a complete write-off in every way.

"Asha Greyjoy, right?" I asked rhetorically, beginning to cross the room.

"Empty that, would you?" she asked, nodding her head at the bedpan. Ugh. The man in the bed moaned in his sleep, and I felt a wave of pity for him. He was clearly dying. And this was clearly a test. I snuck a glance at Baerag, tempted to ask him to toss the shit for me, the test be damned, but I could use every ounce of goodwill I could get from a Greyjoy right now.

I did as she asked, and quickly. I conjured a quick stream of seawater to scour the bedpan clean, rinsing it in the air as I held it out the window, and then returned it to its hiding place under the bed.

The smell in the room improved a fraction.

Asha put down her quill, and looked at Baerag, ignoring me.

"What do you want, sailor?" she demanded. He stuttered in response. "No, it wasn't just to bring Lodos here, was it? Or you wouldn't have gone looking for me three days ago. And the day before that." She gave him a sly smile, one which pulled the onlooker's attention away from the size of her nose and towards the cleverness of her eyes. Perhaps I was being fanciful, imagining a spark of intellect in her face just because she sat there with a pen in hand.

She stood, and walked over to him. There was a lazy strut to her step, the saunter of a cat crossing a courtyard.

"Or maybe you didn't want anything in particular. Maybe you just plain wanted me," she suggested, laying a hand on his chest. He flushed, bright scarlet, and I held in my laugh only to save him the embarrassment.

I saw exactly what she was doing. Walking right past me to pay attention to the other man, ordering me around like a servant, making me wait when I'd clearly come to speak to her. Well, I hadn't. But she'd think I had.

"No," said Baerag finally, his voice strong even as his face burned. "I wanted a berth on your ship for the next raid." What a surprise. Baerag had an ulterior motive, the sly dog. I honestly hadn't thought he had it in him. Did he honestly think I wanted to see Asha, or had he wilfully misinterpreted my request?

"Oh?" she asked, moving her hand lower, towards his stomach. "I don't fuck the men under my command, you know. And I do have the command, lowly woman and all."

"Yes, captain," he said in agreement. She quirked an eyebrow.

So my guess last night had been right. Sort of. This was a woman who was used to leading men. It made sense, with her father as king of the pirates, and all. I wouldn't expect a pirate princess to be a wilting wallflower locked up in a tower and waiting to be rescued. Not for the first time, I wondered where women fit into this society. They had been almost completely absent at the feast, except Asha, servants - thralls? - and a few others. Helwren had nearly been killed just to whittle away at her husband's might, and worse yet, Andrik had been pressured to do the deed himself.

Was that a cultural thing, a social pressure, or just a pressure coming down from Balon Greyjoy? I expected it was probably a bit of both, whipped together until good and frothy.

"I'm not in the habit of letting no-name fishermen taste their first blood on one of my raids," said Asha. "Although I do admit, you keep interesting company of late." She paused for a moment, deliberately. "I do miss my dear uncle," she said, pretending that she hadn't been talking about me. "Is he getting enough to eat? He looks thinner by the day."

"He isn't, not anywhere near enough!" complained Baerag. Asha and I were both startled by the sudden vehemence, and she actually dropped her charade, taking her hand off his chest with wide eyes. "Every day, I try to get him to eat something solid. Bread or potatoes or barley. He hardly even takes porridge. Just that flask of seawater, little sips throughout the day, and pieces of fish. I don't know how he has the energy to walk around, let alone preach and fight the way he does."

Asha stared at Baerag like he was a fish himself.

"I keep telling him that he needs to take better care of himself, but he tells me I'm just being soft. 'God sustains me,' he says, but his bones poke further out by the day. If God's sustaining him, then God's doing a shit job!"

Baerag realised what he was saying as he finished speaking, and turned as white as the belly of a fish. His look of guilt and horror was as funny to me as his blush had been earlier, but this time it wasn't cruel, so I let myself laugh. He watched in astonishment.

Asha looked at me, acknowledging me for the first time since we'd entered the sickroom. She also looked surprised by my reaction. Surprised and pleased.

"Dad doesn't really pay much attention to little details like needing to eat. The whole immortality thing has left him a bit out of touch with what mortals need." I frowned. "It looks like he's been rather neglectful around here in a lot of ways, doesn't it?"

"The last time someone claimed to be the god's son, he was bragging at a kingsmoot," said Asha. "Are you doing it just so you have a free pass to blaspheme whenever you like?"

"That's just a fringe benefit. The job comes with a few."

The sick man moaned again, and broke into a coughing fit. Asha darted to his side without hesitation, wiping the spit from his mouth with the sleeve of her tunic. She glared at me as if daring me to challenge her over that simple display of affection, and stroked the man's head.

I struggled to tell his age. He looked old, but part of that was his pallour, and the blankets dwarfing him. A rough life out here on Pirate Island would age someone quicker than in the comforts available back home, I imagined, so my guess could be way off. He looked like he was in his sixties, so I assumed he was probably actually in his fifties.

"Are you well, Qalen?" she asked him, speaking in soft tones. "Can you hear me? It's Asha. Do you remember me?"

"Asha?" he croaked, not opening his eyes. "Who's that with you? Are you playing with Tristifer again?"

"No, Qalen," she soothed. "Father sent Tristifer to Blacktyde years ago. Don't you remember? You're the one who told him to, Qalen."

"Qalen, Qalen," he croaked in mockery of her. "You sound like one of my ravens, screeching for corn. Why do you keep saying my name, girl?"

She dropped the gentleness from her demeanour, and stood, hands on her hips.

"Because names ground us and remind us who we are. When a person's mind is wandering due to age or injury or illness, you can call their name to bring them back to themselves. You taught me that. If you're lucid enough for sass, you're lucid enough to remember that."

"Lucid enough to box your ears," he wheezed, chuckling as best a man could when he had no breath to spare. Soon he began to choke on his own breath, and Asha bent to pull him into a better position.

"I'm dying," Qalen said to me, once she had him sitting upright in his bed. His eyes were open, but a milky film covered them, and his eyelids drooped. I didn't know what was wrong with him, but his diagnosis seemed pretty spot on.

"Why?" I asked.

"Greyscale," he said merrily, and I saw Baerag seize up, as if preparing to leap away. It wasn't a familiar disease to me, but I assumed it was bad by Baerag's reaction.

"You do not have greyscale," muttered Asha, shoving a pillow unceremoniously under Qalen's back.

"Perhaps it's the bloody flux," he suggested. I didn't know what that one was, either, but Asha shook her head as well. Qalen lowered his voice and then whispered, as if we were conspirators huddled over a candle in a hidden room. "Or maybe Greyjoy poisoned me because maesters know too many secrets. Maester Qalen's maester secrets, but mostly Qalen's master's secrets," he said in a peculiar sing-song voice. Asha stiffened at first, but I saw her, inch by inch, override her tensed body, force herself to relax, and feign misunderstanding.

"Yes, Qalen, you caught me," she said dryly. "I've been putting hemlock in your bathwater."

"Oh no, no, no," he said, repeating no over and over again. "Tremors in the hands and burning in the gut, weak muscles, sore muscles, excess of spit and dilation of the eye, these are the symptoms of hemlock poisoning and I haven't eaten any parsnips with Lord Balon today."

It was tempting to find meaning in the ramblings of a sick old man, but with Greyjoy's own daughter tending to the man, was it likely that Balon had poisoned him? Surely not. I sighed. Yes. Absolutely. Guilt was a powerful motivator, even second-hand guilt. I could see some kindness in Asha from her ministrations, as well as an actual fondness for the man she was looking after, but nothing about her suggested nursemaid.

Baerag was sent down to the kitchens to fetch some hot water for a medicinal tea. Qalen called after him that it was a waste to spend the effort on a dead man, but he just hunched his shoulders and disappeared downstairs anyway. The poor guy had seemed incredibly uncomfortable around Qalen. Sickness must be a big fear for the Ironborn and their primitive healthcare. I felt a little smug and a little guilty about my robust demigod health. Not many pathogens could get through my body.

"Is he another Greyjoy?" I asked, gesturing to the man in the bed.

"What? No. He's a maester, from the Citadel in Oldtown." Uh. Could you say that again, but in Greek for me?

"I don't know what any of those things are," I admitted.

"He's an educated man. Spent years with the greenlanders learning to read, and figure, and tend the ravens, and heal, and, and," she paused, realising that she was beginning to ramble. She swallowed, heavily, and composed herself, plastering a fake smile onto her face and turning to me.

"I thought everyone on this rock knew all about the maesters and their wicked sorcery. Frightful stuff, godless stuff, say the priests. Why, if you tell one of them your name they might write it down," she said, speaking as if she was telling a scary story to a child. "I'm surprised the priests haven't warned you to stay away in case a maester curses you to be craven or able to read."

"I can read," I said, somewhat too defensively. As I said that, Baerag came back through the door, holding a steaming pail. He placed it on the desk, and began thumbing through the bottles on the shelf above it. They contained scraps of leaves and powders, and were labelled in a flowing cursive script.

"Merciful God, lock up your daughters," she swore, rolling her eyes. I averted my gaze, and with a ghost of teenage awkwardness, decided to tell the truth.

"I'm not very good at it, though," I admitted ruefully.

She made a curious noise in the back of her throat and studied me carefully.

"Interesting," she said at last.

"What is?"

"You're all upside down, boy!" squawked Qalen. I smiled, and assumed it was simple delirium at work, but Asha actually nodded along.

"There are a few Ironborn who can read and figure, here and there. Helps with their work, so it's useful, but they don't want to be seen as weak, so they don't like letting on. They're ashamed if they find out. And if someone is caught reading, why, they'll proudly proclaim that they're terrible at it, and can't understand a word."

I tried not to cringe. It was like a bad memory of the old school days before I left the mortal world behind for good. I couldn't tell if she was mocking me or not, but the memories were painful regardless.

"So what if I'm not great at reading?" I challenged back at her. "There are other things I'm good at. Everyone has different talents."

"See, that's just it again," she said, confusing me further. "You say you can't read well, but you see that as the weakness whereas Ironborn would say that reading itself is the act of a weakling. And you're not using your lack of ability to defend yourself, but confessing to it as something you lack. You've got it all upside down. Ironborn have the opposite attitude."

"Really?"

I was stunned. Back home, being bad at reading had made me look like an idiot, a delinquent, and a waste of space. The others in my class, my teachers, any other adults I came across, they would all look at me as if I was a slug because I struggled to translate these little arrays of pictographs into sounds. Avoiding that constant contempt from the world around me might almost make it worth growing up here instead. Hah. Give or take a few minor details.

"I can read," said Baerag quietly. He ran a finger over the labelled jars. "Hemlock. Nightwort. Tansy. Deadnettle." He wandered to the far side of the room, collecting everything he needed to make Qalen's tea.

"How do you know what herbs to use?" I asked, wondering if he had other hidden talents. He just pointed at the desk, where the parchment Asha had been working on lay.

"I was writing out the recipe when you arrived," she explained. "I think I have it memorised, but I don't want to make a mistake. And if he still lives when I next head out on a raid, I'll need to have one of the thralls make it for him instead."

Baerag was bumbling and overeager in most ways, but I saw that change. A focus came over him, and he seemed to forget about our presence entirely, he was so immersed in his task. He poured measures of herbs into a cup, holding the jars up to the light and using his fingers to measure the dosage for most. For one, final powder, he drew his knife, licked the tip, and placed it in the jar. A few grains of whatever it was stuck to the metal, and then he used it to stir the mix into the hot water.

I saw a pleased twist to Asha's face as she also observed the sudden confidence in his demeanour. Turns out her newest oarsman isn't just a waste of space with friends in high places.

"I wanted to be a priest, did I tell you that yet, Lodos?" he asked, staring down at the cup as leaves softened and powders dissolved. "I was terrible at remembering all of the stories and histories, no matter how often Damphair told them to me. I was a keen listener, and he knew it, or else he wouldn't have spent the time, but I just couldn't hold them in my head the way a priest has to. But I had my letters from my father, and it was something I was good at." His voice was wistful, and even Qalen appeared to be paying attention when he spoke.

"So I started writing them down. All these tales of the Drowned God and his merling wives, the Grey King and his battle with the great sea dragon Nagga over Old Wyk where her bones still stand. All of them. Even the tales of Lodos and Lodos Twice-Drowned," he added, giving me a knowing look. "But then I went looking for work on a ship, and no Ironborn captain wants a reading man on board. It's bad luck. Worse than a woman on the ship."

That explains why he wanted to sail under Asha's colours, then. No other captain would have him, and maybe their respective bad luck would cancel it out for each other.

"I suppose there'll be a new story to write down soon," he finished, and laughed mirthlessly. "Just when I thought I was finally done!"

"Are you going to write up what happened last night - the story of Helwren Ironborn?" asked Asha. The notion made me feel rather odd, almost queasy. It was like being caught on camera unexpectedly, but worse. Baegar laughed, and there was a bit more heart in it this time.

"Oh, absolutely. Just as soon as Damphair has got his telling of it straight. He'll refine it on a dozen audiences today, to anyone who'll listen. I'll wait until he's settled to put ink to paper. I don't want him changing the way he tells it when I'm halfway through putting it down."

"Don't you want to write it in your own words?" I asked, curious. He shook his head.

"Damphair's the storyteller, not me. I just copy it out."

I guess that made sense. To each his own. I was surprised that big, excitable Baegar was a closet scholar, though. Maybe his inability to memorise stories was as crippling to him as my dyslexia had been for me. I could see how it would make life difficult when you're trying to follow in an oral tradition like the Drowned Men. I felt a burst of kinship with the man, all of a sudden, and began to reframe his mildly irritating eagerness as the Ironborn analog to ADHD.

Of course it wasn't. But the thought made me feel a little less alone in this desolate place, and I felt strangely protective of him.

"So will Asha's raid be your first battle?" I asked.

"My first real one, yes."

"I'm coming with you," I said, in a tone that brooked no arguments. Naturally, Asha argued.

"Who says I even have space on my ship for you, Lodos?" she said, sneering. A fake sneer. Of course it was fake. She'd seen me fight.

"Stop calling me Lodos," I grumbled. "You know that's not my name."

"In a way it is," said Baegar, and shrugged when I glared at him. "Lodos the first was the son of the Drowned God, a priest-king of the Ironborn. When his prayers failed, he walked into the sea with his robes laden with rocks and twenty thousand of his followers behind him. All of their bodies washed ashore, all but Lodos, who was swept away to his father's halls beneath the waves."

"You just explained exactly why it's someone else's name."

"But then some years later, a man came from nowhere, claiming to be Lodos, returned from the sea. He urged the Ironborn to raise a king, and overthrow the greenlanders' false rule. One man, or maybe two men, claiming to be the son of the Drowned God and to be called Lodos."

"I remember you telling me the story. But I'm not claiming to be Lodos," I argued.

"One comes with the other now. When a man is particularly blessed, you might call him Lodos as a jest. The Greyjoy called Damphair Lodos for a year after he joined the priesthood." He paused, frowning at the mention of Damphair. "Hm," he muttered, mumbling aloud as he wandered off on another train of thought. "You're as good as called Percy Lodos. It doesn't quite fit, though, does it? Especially if we wanted to fit it to verse. A shame it isn't a bit longer - Percy, Perseus Lodos, maybe?"

What.

My hands clenched, and I couldn't seem to unstick my fingers. I crossed my arms to hide them, and tried not to feel like someone was walking over my grave. My tongue didn't sit comfortably in my mouth, and I was suddenly aware of the way my teeth rested against one another.

"That's my name," I choked out, unable to help myself. "Perseus Jackson."

"Jackson?" asked Asha, focusing on the wrong part, because of course she would. "I don't know of House Jack. Are your lands in Essos? I knew you didn't have the look of the smallfolk about you," she said triumphantly. I felt faint, as if the ground was very far away.

Perseus Lodos. The syllables rolled off my tongue too easily, resonated in my head too deeply. It was like a bell chiming. No, more like a smith striking an anvil with a hammer. Each blow tempering and hardening something deep inside me, even as the pressure threatened to break me.

I was sweating as if I was the same temperature as the glowing metal being hammered by a smith, and there was a sensation of something tearing behind my navel. I swayed, and the keep swayed in the opposite direction. Baegar's face was worried, but there were two of them, moving in and out of one another, and then I fell.

A bird cried in the skies outside. It was richer than the gulls which had been screaming all morning, and somehow the two piercing notes of the bird's voice seemed to sound almost like it was saying Percy. I recognised the call. An albatross. A sign of good luck.

The distraction snapped me out of the hypnotic thrum of whatever was going on inside me. My mind was reeling and my power roiling, but I had officially had enough. I wasn't going to faint in front of a pirate captain and a greenhorn sailor-scribe, and that was that. I pushed back, against the echo of Perseus Lodos bouncing around inside my skull.

Percy, I told myself firmly. Percy.

Perseus Lodos came back from somewhere inside me, and I heard it echoed in the sea all around me.

I landed face-first on the stone, crunching my outstretched hand beneath me. I'd attempted to break my fall but only ended up bending my wrist back too far in the wrong direction. Ouch. The stone was nice and cool, at least. If it wasn't for my throbbing hand pressed into my chest, I might have considered staying there for a while. Instead I rolled over, and massaged some life back into my hand.

"No, I'm not from House Jack, and I don't own any lands," I replied conversationally, as if nothing had just happened and I was not lying on my back with aching fingers. "Jackson is my mother's name. I use it to remind me of where I come from, and all she's done for me. She doesn't even own a house. She rents an apartment, and it's tiny."

I didn't stay long after that. She wouldn't let me, claiming that she already had one patient to care for and wasn't going to lift a damn finger to help a second, so I'd best stop swooning in her presence. Baerag helped me out, and down one set of stairs. I was stumbling around like a drunk calf, as if the gravitational pull of the Earth, or wherever we were, had doubled, and I was being sucked downwards. By the time we'd gone down a floor I was leaning on him rather heavily. He was a large person, and looked strong, but I guess my heritage and training had weighed me down with plenty of dense muscle and ichor, heavier than fat and blood, respectively.

He paused for breath, and I peeled myself off him.

"No, it's alright!" he tried to protest, but I shook my head.

"I was just sliding down your shoulders. One more flight of stairs and I'd be riding you down them like a sled." I took a deep breath, and listened to the waves break against the rocks. That's what I needed. To go for a swim and clear my head.

The albatross cried my name again, as if to applaud my idea, and I smiled.

We weren't that far up. A few hundred feet, what with the castle and the bluffs beneath. I managed to stagger to the window, and thrust my head out.

Oh. The base of the column of rock flared outwards, with jagged edges dribbling away into boulders and chunks of fallen masonry poking out from the water. I was willing to dive into the sea from up here, but not so much solid rock. I sighed. It was a nice idea, but in my current state I didn't think I'd be able to propel myself the fifty horizontal feet needed to be clear of the rocks below.

I didn't feel bad. My limbs responded normally, and I could think more or less clearly. There was just this leaden weight on me, a pressure like the one I had felt when at the bottom of the ocean, diving for mysteries. It pushed me down to the floor almost as if there was a giant's hand in the air above me.

Baegar grabbed me again, offering himself as support. I appreciated the gesture, but as soon as he had pulled one of my arms over his shoulders, he began to slump under the weight. Peculiar. I knew I wasn't the lightest person in the world, but he should have been able to support some of my weight. It's not as if he was even trying to carry me outright, which may have been easier with this crushing pressure shoving me constantly to the floor.

The pressure. Oh. It clicked. It wasn't weariness or illness or some magical malady from wrestling with my name. It was an external force. An actual, tangible force pushing me down towards the sea. Baegar and the floor were just victims of circumstance, caught in the line of fire.

I told myself not to pick at it. Not to scratch the itch. Not to make it worse.

"I am Percy Jackson," I said out loud, and nothing happened. "I am Perseus Lodos," I tried, and the sensation of being crushed by the abyssal depths vanished. Gone, as if it had never happened, save for Baegar's confusion and my irritation.

"I guess you were right about that one," I said to him. He was suitably mystified, and I enjoyed being the one who knew all the secrets, for a change. Well, one secret. The albatross called for a third time, and flew in the window.

Have you ever fancied a bird as an image of elegance and grace? Imagined what it is to soar, cutting through the breeze like an arrow, mind and body focused into a single shot drawn and fired at the horizon? It's easy to see why people associate birds with the gods. A divine messenger could well take such a lithe, efficient form to dip to and from Olympus.

Ten seconds with a large seabird indoors, and you will never think that way again.

The albatross screamed in my face like a bratty four year old who wouldn't share the red crayon. It struck Baegar with its wings hard enough to leave bruises on his bare arms, which he held up to shield his head. It drove the hook of its beak into my neck, and would have torn a chunk of flesh loose had it been able to get a better grip.

I grabbed it just as it broke my skin, one hand around each part of the beak, and shoved it back. It beat its wings furiously, but I was a demigod. I could walk through a hail of arrows and barely flinch. This bird was nothing. Blows strong enough to break mortal bone rained down on me as I pushed it back, wrenching the creature away from Baegar. Its wingspan was so large that I had to be rough to get it out of the window, but one final push and it was through, and flying away angrily.

"Was that a message from the gods?" he asked, holding one hand over his eye where the bird's wingtip had nearly blinded him.

"No, those are usually meaner," I said with complete honesty. I hadn't sensed any sign of divinity from the bird by the time it struck us, but I paused, cocking my head in thought. There was a possibility, and it fit with how the gods operated. "It wasn't acting like a bird. There may have been someone else in there," I suggested. "But when whoever was there left, they abandoned the albatross pointed straight at the keep, staring at us through the window. The bird didn't have enough time or brainpower to change direction."

Baerag looked worried, and rubbed at his bruises.

"This feels like the kind of thing Damphair calls an omen," he said. I shrugged.

"Well, it was. Kind of. The albatross wheeling outside, calling for my attention? There was some interesting timing there. Somebody was making that happen."

"Are you sure we haven't offended the gods?"

I couldn't help it. I grinned. If there was any possible way to offend the gods, I'd likely achieve it sooner or later. It was a wonder I hadn't driven Poseidon away with my antics. Then again, he hadn't driven me away with his antics, which were just as bad, but on the scale of millennia.

"The gods are perpetually offended, my innocent friend. I like to keep them that way as much as I can. It's good for the soul."

Seeing the concern on Baerag's face, I squeezed his arm in a brotherly fashion. He seemed to be craving positive attention, so a little bit of the affection he so desperately wanted might serve to distract him from all these thoughts of vengeful gods. I'm a forgiving person, I swear.

"The albatross helped me," I explained. "The gods don't help people when they're angry with them. It seemed to be calling my name, grounding me in reality every time I heard it."

Baegar's face lit up, and his relief was palpable. I chuckled, unable to imagine what it would be going through life afraid of every little tantrum the gods might throw my way.

I thought I had an idea what had happened up in the room now above our heads. Poseidon once told me that he grew confused and disoriented when his Greek and Roman aspects grew too close. When Baegar had coined that Frankenstein of a name, Perseus Lodos, he had invoked some Ironborn answer to Percy Jackson.

My belly was full of coals. There was definitely no other demigod walking around the island of Pyke, and my instincts told me exactly who Perseus Lodos was. He was me. The version of me shaped by the Ironborn, and how they saw me. Even now, before any grand quests had happened or stories had been told, I could feel the shape of Perseus Lodos hanging in the future before me, a Percy Jackson shaped by the culture of the Ironborn and deeds not yet done.

Demigods were occasionally gifted with the clarity of foresight, but this particular glimpse of possibility felt like a threat.


	5. Chapter 5

Baerag howled, and buried his sword in his foe's chest. The blade barely nicked his thick steel plate, so he spun off to the side and ducked under his enemy's arm, drawing a fine line against his side with the sword. The plate did not break. His foe struck downwards, smacking the back of an armoured elbow into Baerag's head. His helmet made a godawful clang, and I flinched.

That had to be a hundred times louder on the inside.

Andrik poked his finger under the lip of Baerag's helmet and lifted it off his head.

"Are you still in there?" he asked.

"Tell me that we're not going to be fighting anyone in plate armour," Baerag groaned. A pinecone bounced off his head, and he whimpered. Asha sat on a haybale, a half-eaten peach discarded beside her. At the sound of his whimper, she fished out the stone and flung that at him, too, pausing afterwards to lick the sticky juice off her fingers.

"Unlikely. Greenlanders are afraid of drowning," she replied. Implying that Ironborn weren't? It was a simple statement of fact, not a boast. Interesting. It fit with everything that had gone down with his wife.

"I notice you don't wear plate," pointed out Andrik the Unsmiling, wearing his trademark expression.

"I can barely lift plate," she said dismissively, and then she drew one of her throwing axes in one swift motion and hurled it at the target on his far side. Bare steel whirled past his face, and thunked two inches deep into wood.

I couldn't help but notice that she was showing off her favoured skill right after Andrik had implied she could be frightened of something. I stifled a laugh at the posturing. I could see right through her pantomime, but many of the Ironborn were fooled. Baerag was among them, by the way his head turned.

Andrik snorted, and turned his attention back to Helwren. She stood impatiently, holding a basket against her hip.

"You know the Greyjoy won't take it well if you go on Asha's raid," she said, addressing Andrik as he helped to piece Baerag back together. "Either one of you going would be bad, but both together? He'll smell conspiracy."

"There is no conspiracy to smell," said Andrik simply. "I go to honour my wife with gold and my god with iron."

"There is gold and blood aplenty on the Great Kraken's decks," Helwren urged. "And far too much of God." She cast me a sour look, and I didn't blame her. Things had been rather frosty between us ever since I violently murdered her. She was certain that I was being a bad influence on Andrik, that Balon would be displeased that he was spending time in my company. She was completely correct, and I said as much every time she brought it up.

"To much of the Old Ways," rumbled Andrik. "No God but when it suits him."

"Don't antagonise Greyjoy," I cautioned. "You slipped the net once, but he's still going to find ways to try to reign you in and make you his hound. He'll cheat, and play dirty, and break your spirit until you're his." I realised that his daughter was only a few feet away, cleaning her nails with her dirk. I muttered out a quick apology. "Sorry, Asha." The younger Greyjoy strutted across to Braegar, and faced off against him, freeing Andrik up to face his wife. She nudged me with her shoulder as she walked past, and gave me a wicked smile.

"You heard what the man said," she said to me. "Don't antagonise me."

Ahh, it was fine. She didn't take it personally, and she knew what her old man was like. I didn't know where her loyalties lay, yet, but she was close with Helwren and would be useful at ferreting out Balon's plots if she decided that she was in our camp. The poisoned maester may have driven a rift between them, as had the attempt on her uncle's life. It had been three days since I met the sick old man in his deathbed over the kitchen, and I wondered at his health.

"How is Qalen doing?" I called out, just as she raised an axe to strike Baerag. She swore, and threw it at the ground, hard, then kicked the shaft. It went clattering away into the side of a crate.

"I just said don't antagonise me," she shouted. Oh. That couldn't be good. I regretted bringing the subject up. Despite all the resurrections that were apparently going on all the time in the Iron Islands, the Drowned Men couldn't do anything to bring back a victim of poison. Asha stomped over to me, snapping at Baerag to bring her axe back. "You and me. Axe to axe. Now."

"No. I'm not fighting you."

"Yes, you are," she insisted, tightening one the the leather wrappings on the haft of her weapon. "Put your armour on."

"I don't have any armour."

"Then draw your sword!" she shouted, kicking at a stone in frustration. It pinged off Andrik's back, and he coughed and turned, ducking out of the argument with Helwren for a moment.

"He will not fight me, either," he said, glumly. Of course I wouldn't! It was hardly sporting, me against a mortal. Oh, look, a particularly large mortal? Oh gee, I can only handle mortals of average size, ideally in single file.

"I asked him not to," said Helwren. Asha thumbed the hilt of her dagger, and growled under her breath. At which one of us, I couldn't tell. Likely both. So far, the only mortal I had faced off against was Baerag. And that wasn't a spar, it was just training. We didn't even cross blades! I corrected his posture here and there, showed him a stance, a way to keep your thumbs intact when live steel is in the air and you're holding a weapon with a long haft. Even so, the others had all been whiny and envious after.

A goat bleated, and wandered through our makeshift training area. I felt a tinge of embarrassment. We had commandeered a patch of scrub and brush near where the livestock for Pyke castle were kept, just on the inside of the keep walls. There was a sheer cliff, a strip of land, and what was left of the crescent-moon shape of the castle wall and its former grounds. Even the animals and storage had better working space. We were just on a big shelf at the end of the cliff. It was out of the way, and out of sight, which suited our wouldn't do forever.

With a jolt, I realised I was thinking in long-term plans. I guess that was it, then. At some point along the way I had accepted that I was going to be here for the long haul. Would it be months? Years? Maybe. Sleeping in the barracks of the Bloody Keep wasn't going to be bearable much longer.

I ran a hand through my hair. The sun wasn't even close to setting, but I decided to call it a day.

After some gentle inquiries with the locals, I learned that a salt-wife was a thrall stolen to be a concubine. How fun. They had a particular legal status, a legitimate marriage ceremony, and their children were not bastards. Kidnap with intent to rape. It sounds as bad as anything the old Greek gods got up to.

So when I pretended to drown and revive Helwren, I inadvertently promoted her from concubine to genuine wife. That could have gone wrong in so many ways. It seemed odd that a couple who met under such, ah, difficult circumstances could have a relationship which seemed as sincere as theirs. I hoped that there was something genuine there, but maybe it was just a trapped woman doing what she could to just continue living amidst an awful situation. There was no way to tell, and I couldn't exactly ask.

I probably should ask. It will be a terrible experience for both of us, but I should definitely ask.

The Ironborn were not bad people. I say that because, fundamentally, they were just people. Neither innately good nor bad, just acting and reacting according to their environments and natures. This was a harsh environment, so they grew harsh. Okay, that makes sense. Would a kinder environment create kinder people, though? I wasn't so sure. Perhaps it would simply allow the better natures people already had to shine through, because their worse qualities weren't being exaggerated by the cruelties of survival.

The task ahead of me was difficult. I wanted to help these Ironborn. As children of the sea, they're my people. They keep calling for a god, so maybe they deserve one. It's a shame that I'm all they've got, but gods don't really exist, not in the way people wish they did as patrons and observers and guardians. Oh, sure, that's what it was like for me. Not for the little people.

I had taken Baerag under my wing, just a little. I was sure as hell observing Helwren and Andrik to find out what their deal was, and I didn't doubt there was somebody around here that needed guarding. I was Poseidon's man on the ground, and that meant I could intervene directly when a real god couldn't.

My head felt like it was full of fog. I shook it, and grasped it between my hands, squeezing it as if I could push it back into the right shape. Bah. Useless. I let go, and stared out over the sea. Tiny white sails in the distance were the boats of fishermen. Now there was something productive I could do.

Within the hour, I was browsing through the fishing craft at the cheaper end of the Lordsport pier. Surely one of these boats had the key left in the engine, I mused, eyeing over the selection available. Frankly, they were all shit, but I was made from a seafaring line, and I could convince a freshly toppled tree, roots and all, that the water over there really liked the cut of its jib.

I wondered what the penalty was for a boat thief around here. Did Balon have a trapdoor in his penthouse suite up in the Sea Tower which dropped ne'er do wells into a shark pit? I expect so. I could deal with a shark pit. Or even a lobster tank, though that would be a bit more creepy, and, given the ratio of shark attacks to shellfish allergies, would probably be more dangerous.

"Looking to take a boat somewhere, ser?" chirped a disturbingly cliche peasant urchin. Alarm bells started ringing in my head, and I knew that the safest course of action was to back away, fast, It probably had tuberculosis, or wanted candy, or had angry parents nearby ready to tear into the strange man trying to molest their child.

Oh, wait. Hold the press. This is Pirate Island in the dung ages. White vans with tinted windscreens haven't even been invented yet.

"Piss off, brat," I said. He pissed off. It was great.

Come to think of it, my recent revelation about salt-wives meant that all the fancy warships docked over at the other side of the class divide were white vans floating on the water. Ugh. My one spark of joy at telling a kid to piss off disappeared, and I speculated as to what he wanted. Probably not tuberculosis, but he probably already did have it. Maybe candy. I expect he didn't have any. Same with parents. Ugh. Now I felt bad for the little shit.

"Hey, hold on," I called. He scurried over, and I looked him up and down. Scrawny, malnourished, dirty. Same as the rest. Shoes not good but were intact. Clothes, the same. Repeatedly and poorly mended, maybe quite recently if the brighter thread in some of the stitching down his torn sleeve was any indicator. Eh. I didn't have any money to give him, anyway.

"What did you want?" I asked. Just being polite. Not feeling sorry for a dockrat urchin, nope.

"You wanted a ship, ser?" the urchin said. "I know where some captains are. Might be they're looking for passengers. I could take you to them."

"I can't pay you for it," I said. "It's not that I don't want to, but I don't have a single coin."

The urchin shrugged, as if used to hearing this excuse.

"Captain might still give me summat if I bring a passenger. Got coin to pay him?" No, I didn't. But a little bit of bartering might do the trick instead.

"Kind of," I hedged, and that was good enough for the brat because he squeakily requested that I follow him and ran off into a dingy alleyway. Oh hell no. I know exactly how this goes down. It wouldn't be a problem for me, of course. It might even help me let off some of this steam that's been building up.

The kid led me through a warren of streets that were more like tunnels as often as not. The smell of garbage and human waste was everywhere. At every turn, I expected a gang of knife-wielding hoodlums to pop out and try their luck.

Not even once. I was actually disappointed.

He led me up to a door marked with a lantern wrapped in gauzy red cloth. Oh no. I knew what a red lantern meant. No way in hell was I following a kid into a brothel. He walked up to the door, I tensed and considered calling out for him to stop, and then he walked right on past it. I exhaled, feeling like an idiot.

I should stop being so judgmental with strange street urchins. Maybe they're not so bad.

Eventually we wound up in a smoky drinking den. Dice rattled in cups, and piles of coin moved from place to place on the table. The proprietor was burning sweet smelling herbs to mask the smell of old beer and sweat. It just made things worse.

I saw a lean, fleabitten looking man hand a coin to the kid, and the urchin fled immediately. Rushed right on past me without saying a word. And after the adventure we shared. Rude. The fleabitten man was Berryn, the frightened guard from my first night on Pyke. Somehow the flickering candles made the wear on his clothes seem even worse than usual, and he had black smudges under his eyes.

Late night?

"I don't know what story he spun you," said Berryn, "but I let slip to a few of the dockrats that I'd give a coin or two for anyone who caught you looking around all lost-like and brought you to me."

How considerate. I was often lost and in need of an urchin guide.

"I was certainly looking around," I said. "I did think I finally knew where I was, though. This is an island, right? I'm sure of it."

He smiled at my attempt at humour, but didn't laugh. He must have been too tired, I reasoned. Only reason.

"You're looking...well," I said, lying through my teeth. At this, he did laugh, and pulled the shapeless hat off his head to press it against his chest.

"On my oath, it's been a rough few days," he admitted. "Everything has turned to shit. And I, in turn, have turned to brandy." He raised a tumbler in salute, and drained it in a single mouthful. There was a bottle on his table. He lifted it up, holding it out to me in offering. I noticed there was no other cup. I shook my head, anyway.

"My ship sailed without me," he said, suddenly, seeming surprised to hear himself speak. Perhaps he wasn't the confessional type? I brought out an odd side in people, sometimes. I would have thought a castle guard was a steady role, though. No ships or departure times to miss, just stone walls and towers. Even when they closed and locked the gates for the night, it was at least still there. "After - after what happened in the keep, I drank myself halfway to death. I slept through the day, and that bastard FitzWynch sailed without me. He's promised it often enough. I never thought he'd actually go through with it."

I frowned, looking at the bottle. It was a cruel thing to abandon a man, but a captain has to make judgement calls for the good of the whole crew.

"Was it for the drink?" I asked.

"What? No, he's just a bastard. Listen, that's not important, it's just the reason why I've been palming off coins on the dockrats. I hear you're putting together a crew. I want on it."

News to me. I sat at the table opposite Berryn, and the bottle looked awfully tempting for a moment. I resisted the urge to grab it and take a swig like a real Ironborn sailor would likely do, but I wasn't concerned about maintaining appearances in regards to my drinking habits when there were far more serious rumours floating around. Did he mean a ship's crew? I didn't have a ship, so that was just plain nonsense. Or worse, did he mean the rough group of people who were beginning to form around me?

"Why would you want that?" I asked, as I tried to wonder where such a rumour could have come from. I hoped it wasn't Damphair, but couldn't discount the possibility that he was doing a little recruiting alongside his proselytising.

"The Greyjoy ditched me from the keepguard," he said, no small amount of bitterness in his voice. "For prayin' too hard when I shoulda been killin'. I tried to reason with him - you took down everyone else, so you'd have just taken me down as well. But no, he just looks down that nose of his at me and says 'it only takes one sword to kill a man' like it's that easy. He called me craven for being afraid of attacking God himself." Berryn spat on the floor, and I wrinkled my lip in revulsion, just from the proximity. In these close quarters, a tiny bit of the spray had landed on me.

One of the many unsavoury habits these men had, I supposed, and hardly the worst.

"But here I am," said Berryn fiercely. "Face to face with God. And I say I'm not a coward if I sought you out."

I sighed, and leaned back in my chair. The back was half-torn off, and had a nail sticking out, so I took care to only relax by the slightest of margins. Berryn was a difficult problem for me. Ignoring the potential warning signs of alcoholism, our previous encounter, and the honestly admirable tenacity with which he'd faced up to his fear, which spoke well enough of his character that I'd overlook the first two things, there were still two points which stuck out.

"Berryn, I'm not the Drowned God, just his son. And I'm not forming a crew."

"You're doing something," he insisted. I shrugged. What else was there to do? Everyone is doing something. It might not be much or have much point, but it's hard to completely deny an accusation as vague as that. "I want in," he said, and that was the end of the matter.

"Every captain," he said, slowly and deliberately, drawing out each word. "Is a king aboard his own ship. You can't ride on someone else's boat, else they'd be king over the gods. It ain't the natural order of things."

"It really doesn't matter."

"See, that's why you want me on your crew. To remind you it does."

I approached Damphair after one of his sermons. It was full of vinegar and thunder, promises and threats, all knotted up with some confused fishing metaphors. It was really more like street theatre than religion. I suppose that roadside recitations were the closest thing to a school that some of these people would ever encounter, the lucky fools.

Damphair was a blunt man, just as I was, so I cut straight to the heart of the matter. Rip the band-aid off.

"Are you telling people that I'm looking for a crew?" I asked.

"People have been asking me if you are," he said by way of reply. "I had no answer to give them. Are you?"

I shrugged.

"It wasn't my intention," I began.

"But people have begun to gather around you nonetheless," he finished. I sighed, and nodded. His eyes shone like gimlets. "This is only natural, Percy. When there is a leader of men, there will be those who follow." He gestured out to the streets of Lordsport, packed with wagons and people and animals. The Iron Islands were supposed to be poor, yet this was clearly a busy trading hub. "They will be out there even now, adrift and seeking purpose. They need someone greater than they are to come and smelt them from rock into iron."

"I am not surprised," continued Damphair, "that rumours have begun to spread. It is the kind of story that the desperate and the poor always tell one another. The promise of hope." He sneered, and I saw a touch of Balon in him. "They are too weak to pull themselves out of the mud alone, but that is where the Drowned God excels. He can wash away all weakness from a man's heart, until all that is left is as hard as his."

Would Damphair rate cruelty as strength or weakness, by this scale? Would the Drowned God? I knew my father's tempers better than anybody, and he could be as capricious as the ocean itself.

I wondered at future stories of my crew, if I chose to build one. Would folk say that I washed out weakness, or would they say that I grew the strength of those around me? A strong person resulted either way, but the framing of that strength could mean everything for the myth of Perseus Lodos. It would be the latter, I decided. That's where the line between me and the gods would fall. I still had the warmth of mortality in my heart, and hadn't turned as cold and cruel and grey as the sea.

I felt that tell-tale shudder as the silhouette of my future self slipped from one path to another. Something in it changed, small and subtle, but there nonetheless. It was like a closed hand open, and it spoke to me of possibilities.

Baerag, Harrit, Andrik, Berryn. These four men were the foundation of my crew. Should I count Helwren and Damphair? Asha Greyjoy had her own ship, fifty men or more to command, and yet I felt as if she was part of this.

Keep it simple. Keep it small. These four for now, and then all the complications of the world could pile on top of them. Berryn had strength in his courage, Andrik his sheer physical might, Harrit his uncomplicated faith, and Baerag his willingness to grow where other Ironborn couldn't.

"It has come to my attention," I said to them, "that we're forming something of a crew here. I need to understand what it means to be Ironborn, so I'm going to go with Baerag on his raid. The Greyjoy doesn't know this yet, nor does Captain Greyjoy. I see no reason why they would need to know until we're underway."

Harritt laughed, and I paused to wait for him to speak.

"Captain Greyjoy might need to know, so as she can have you and your gear aboard when she leaves," he said. I shrugged.

"I'm making alternative arrangements for getting aboard. I'm going to be keeping a low profile for as long as I can." I wanted to see how the Ironborn acted without a so-called Lodos walking in their midst. They weren't overly given to awe, despite their superstitions, so I was hopeful it wouldn't be too different. Even those few like Berryn who thought I was actually a god didn't speak to me with reverence, but as they would another man.

Harritt studied me intently, no doubt pondering my motives.

"I know who you are," he said, "but there's so much you don't know about being Ironborn. Is it the same with the sea - is that all new to you, as well?" he asked, tone mostly dismissive but with an undercurrent of caution. I grinned. The point was a fair assumption, but it missed the mark by a long way.

"How do you think I got here?" I asked. "Obviously it was by sea." More than you could imagine. Harritt shifted on the old weatherbeaten crate he was using as a seat, a little, and Baerag clapped him on the back. "So, I'll be at sea - again - for at least a turn of the moon. While I'm gone, there is work to do. Harritt, Andrik, Berryn, I want you to keep an ear close to the ground. Listen for who is asking about us. For the men looking to join us, and the sharks lurking around, waiting for the smell of blood in the water."

"Some of the lads have been asking around," Harritt admitted. "Shall I bring them on board?"

We were clustered outside in our little patch of scrub. I eyed it with distaste, thankful that at least a goat hadn't interrupted us this time. Inwardly, I sighed. I didn't want to start something here, but it was happening whether I wanted to or not. Sometimes you can't stop the wind from blowing, only hoist a sail to catch it.

"If there are any good men among them," I said at last. "Use your own judgement for what that means. I'm not looking for the fiercest fighters, I'm looking for the ones with the fiercest reasons for fighting."

The Black Wind was almost sixty feet long, prow to stern, and had a man for every foot. Her sail was vast and rectangular and black, bearing the motif of House Greyjoy. Ten sinuous tentacles and a body like a squid. It was an exact match for the Seastone Chair which sat at the back of Pyke's Great Keep. By all accounts Balon the Greyjoy ruled more from his solar in the battered Sea Tower than the actual throne, so perhaps it was only fitting that the throne - or an icon of it - be taken out to spread the name of the Ironborn.

It was a salve on my conscience that the gleaming longship was going to be preying on other pirates, on this voyage. It was forbidden to reave the coasts of Westeros, but the edict was loosely enforced, and some captains were even tempted by prizes on the other great continent of this world.

Baerag was already bundled up on the ship, his sea chest stowed beneath his bench and and oar in his grip. I'd heard stories of the mess that a green oarsman could make on such a vessel, and was glad I wouldn't be taking those first few strokes with him.

Something indistinct was bellowed from on-deck, stolen by the wind and weather. A rope was cast off, a drum began to sound, and the longship was off.

Harritt turned to me, expectantly.

"There she goes," he said. "And you're going to, what, swim after them? Carrying nothing but the clothes on your back?"

"Exactly," I said brightly, and strode out to the edge of the water. It was the kind of blue which came all the way up to black, and contained the kind of sharks which ate other sharks. I rolled my shoulders back, and stretched my arms and legs. A warm-up wasn't necessary for me, but I enjoyed the routine. Harritt watched, bemused, but not objecting.

The ship was growing distant by now, so I took my leave of Harritt with a nod and leapt into the water. I'm not too mature to admit that I cannonballed my way down instead of diving, or that I let out a ridiculous whoop of joy as I did so.

Even polar seas would feel warm and pleasant to the touch. Such was the nature of my father's gift.

This sea was different.

As I broke the surface, a manic glee rose within me. I tumbled forwards, swimming not like a man but more like a falcon might dive, cutting under and onwards through the waves, accelerating under the force of my power. Perhaps it was because I had spent so many days on land, surrounded by alien men with alien morality, or perhaps it was just the cleansing power of the sea washing away the stresses of my mind and body, but I felt free in a way I had not done since coming to this place. Free of the guilt and shame over how cruel and capricious these fellow children of Poseidon seemed to be, free of the nagging sensation that they were my responsibility, that our commonality meant that the Ironborn's ways must be curbed or encouraged by my action or inaction.

I had met other children of Poseidon before. Many were bizarre, inhuman; mermen, monsters, cyclopes and others stranger still. Did I feel more closely attuned to the Ironborn because they, for all their monstrosity, also wore the shape of men?

Here, beneath the sea, it didn't matter. I could forget my thoughts and simply be.

I shot through the water like a bullet from a gun, twisting my body ever so slightly so that I cut through the sea in a spiral, drilling ever onwards towards my destination. It didn't do much of anything, but the sensation was fun.

Beyond the usual peace of the ocean, I was overcome with giddiness and joy. Was it because I'd gone for days without swimming, unusual for me? Or perhaps it was the pleasure of a brand new ocean to explore.

I saw the keel of the Black Wind ahead of me, and slowed my pace. The sudden change in movement of water caused it to swell up, rising over my head, and then rushing out in every direction as it dissipated. It wasn't huge, but it was unexpected, and I fancied I could hear the surprised shouts as the longship was jostled forwards at a faster rate.

The ship was close enough to touch, oars dipping in and out of the water around me in measured strokes. I swam around them, making a game of looping around an oar before it could break the surface, and laughed aloud at the rising bubbles in my stomach which pushed up through my gorge and out in bursts of delight, as if my scalp was being massaged by a thousand delicate needles at once.

The wood of the longship's hull was warm to the touch, and through the waves it somehow smelled like summer. I grasped it, and pulled myself closer, resting on it like a bed in a world of inverted gravity. The sea held me in place, and I was comfortable enough to drift into sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

My best impression of a barnacle was good enough to carry me along, attached to the underside of the Black Wind. For three days and two nights I clung there, undisturbed as the Ironborn sailors laboured to cross the sea. It was no effort at all for me. Time hardly seemed to pass. If not for the pull of the moon on the tides rousing me and lulling me to sleep with the ebb of the waves, I could have slept there forever.

The longship struck land, and I was jolted loose from my trance.

I pushed away from the ship, and swam out to deeper waters just in time to avoid being ground against the sand of the beach.

Sailors leapt down, heavy boots splashing into the shallows. I couldn't make out the words, but something was being shouted, and then they heaved the bulk of the ship towards the shore. I felt a little bit guilty for having hitched a ride all this way without taking my turn at an oar, so I pushed upwards with the water to lighten their load.

It was only a moment before the longship was completely clear of the sea, and my ability to help carry the weight unseen was gone. I considered making my way out to join them. Surely we were so far from the Iron Islands by now that the Greyjoy captain wouldn't turn me away, but that had always been a lesser concern. I had wanted to observe the Ironborn working naturally, under their own direction, but had been too caught up in my trance to eavesdrop.

I made my way to a spar of barren rock which jutted out of the sea, some distance away. Once I was confident that no mortal eyes would accidentally catch a glimpse of me, I pulled myself up onto it. The fresh air burned when it hit my lungs, a shock to the system after so long underwater. I gasped, choking down deep, frantic lungfuls and struggling to stay silent.

My body acclimatised quickly, leaving me perched on the rock with an aching chest. My stomach growled, and I realised that it was aching, too. I'd grown used to having sleep for dinner during my teenage misadventures, but three nights in a row was pushing it.

Sunset was here already. The sky was lit in shades of orange and pink, pastel colours softening the edges of the land. In places the sea looked almost like it was softly glowing, little licks of light and colour playing on the foamy tips of waves. In comparison the land was matte and dull, humps of dismal greenery poking out from sand dunes. There were no trees anywhere in sight. This piece of shoreline, wherever we were, was even more barren than Pyke had been.

There were crabber's traps laid around the shore, and a thin trail led up the hillside - unpaved and unmarked, just worn by the passage of feet countless times. Pieces of a half-mended net hung suspended between two poles.

I watched from a distance as Asha directed her crew into building a hasty shelter against the elements. Tents sprung up, hastily assembled from gear carried in the ship. I was impressed by the speed with which they were built, and the tiny bundles from which the materials were brought. If not for the fact that they were made from wood and hide instead of aluminium and plastic, I could almost have believed that the sailors had bought their tents in a store back on Earth.

The camp was crude, but better than I had lived out of many a time. I was again overcome by the urge to go walk among people, to join them in their camp for an evening of sharing jokes and stories. A pang ate away at my gut, and I told myself that it wasn't loneliness; I didn't miss my fellow demigods from camp, I was just hungry.

I could nearly believe it, because I was really hungry.

The whole reason I had ended up here in the Iron Islands - or, I suppose, Westeros in truth now - was because I had wanted some time to myself. Peace and quiet, isolation from the constant grumbling and bickering of the gods. An opportunity to have an adventure for myself, instead of being sent on a quest for someone else.

I sighed, and stared at my reflection in the water. An adult stared back at me, where part of me still expected to see that teenage boy from Camp Half-Blood. Eyes green as the sea, and hair as dark as the places beneath it. Oh, I was checking myself out now. Well, it was better than moping.

If anyone from back home had caught me staring at my own reflection like that, I'd never have lived it down. Annabeth would have called me as vain as Zeus himself. I saw my reflection's eyes quirk up into a smile at the thought, and I rolled my eyes. No more thinking of home, I told myself, remembering Chiron instructing me to keep my attention on the present.

A splash in the distance reminded me that the ocean is alive. I dove back in, and went looking for something to eat.

A couple of hours later, I was sitting back on the rock, cracking the legs of crabs and stuffing the meat into my mouth. I'd wrestle a gorgon for some soy sauce. Or even a pad of butter.

I was struck by a sudden idea, and reached down into the water, pulling a cupped handful out. I concentrated, and allowed the liquid to seep between my fingers until I was left with a dry hand and a tiny pile of salt. Jackpot. I took it between my thumb and forefinger, sprinkling it over the crabmeat.

Blessed Poseidon, thank you for seasoning my dinner. I'd have made you an offering, but I'd gone without a cookfire to help hide my presence. Sorry Dad. Call it an IOU.

I watched the orange glow on the horizon, chewing on my snack and thinking of condiments. I wondered what the Ironborn were cooking.

A thought occurred. Odd that they had gone up the hill to cook, rather than make their dinner at camp. I'd guessed that they'd gone off in search of game to hunt, but the normal thing to do would have been to bring it back to their camp, so they would have the remnants of the fire to warm them as they slept. Right?

The orange glow was far too big for a campfire. I swore, and leapt to my feet, my paltry meal dropping unfinished into the ocean.

Asha had told me she was going to raid pirate vessels in the Stepstones. I didn't know where we were, but this shoreline was not a week's travel away and whatever was burning was too far inland to be a pirate ship.

I hate being lied to.

-x-x-

The sea held my weight as firmly as solid rock. More than that, it pushed me upwards with each step, propelling me to greater speeds as I sprinted over the water.

Yeah, I was pissed.

Seven strides carried me to the shore. Just seven strides to cross hundreds of metres. I didn't know when I'd drawn my sword, but Anaklusmos rang in my ears as the wind broke against her edge.

I was up the hill quickly, and then I could see the distant village. The shapes of the buildings were occluded by smoke but outlined in fire. I grimaced, gritting my teeth, and pushed onwards.

As I neared the village, I slowed my pace. It wouldn't do to start a fight already out of breath. I hoped this could be solved without combat, but the sound of screams on the air made me feel that was no longer an option. I could feel my heart beating, hard and slow. Despite my sprint. I could count seconds between heartbeats. I wasn't energised, like the thought of battle usually made me. I felt still. Not calm, not anywhere near it, but controlled. My anger didn't rule me. It was a sword in my hand.

The village was - had been - a motley assortment of huts. I couldn't imagine more than twenty families lived here. There was a worn track leading to another beach, on the other side of the hilly promontory which the Ironborn had hidden their camp behind. Maybe ten fishing boats were moored there, none better than the poorest of the craft I'd turned my nose up at in Lordsport.

These people had nothing.

A man's voice broke the air, harsh and jeering, thick with bloodlust. There were no words in what he was shouting, just hunger and cruelty. The sound of steel on wood was everywhere. I listened closely, trying to piece my way through it for the quieter, more awful sound of steel on flesh.

As I moved closer, I heard the soft thump of flesh hitting flesh, and the cries of whoever had been struck, but the screams were mostly of fear, not pain. The Ironborn were not wantomly murdering the fisherfolk just yet, it seemed. A dark thought rose inside me, and I prayed that they weren't sparing these people just to enslave them. Enthrall them. Whatever. Here, now, among the metal and fire of a raid, the difference was purely semantic and wholly irrelevant.

Through the gaps between buildings, I saw Ironborn smashing doors open with axes, chasing peasants outside, howling and laughing like wolves from a fever dream.

I stalked through the huts, out into the open space they circled around. It might have passed for a village green, once, but was now torn up by mud from fifty extra pairs of boots running over it. It was full of people, running and screaming but unable to escape the circle of buildings. The Ironborn harried them like sheepdogs, corralling them to and fro, blocking off any routes for escape.

Worst of all, there were some of the locals huddled in a mass in the centre of the green, sobbing and clutching at one another. The sight of surrender tore at me worse than the ungainly lumps in the mud which could only be bodies.

Asha Greyjoy stood over them, her face unreadable. Two men holding torches flanked her, and she held an axe which gleamed like her skin in the firelight. In that moment she was as cold and hard as the weapon she carried.

Pens for livestock lay here and there. I saw a collapsed wooden cage, a nest of twigs inside it. The yolk of broken eggs spilled out like pale blood onto the ground. A cow lay on its side, lowing quietly. A pool of liquid spread out from heavy rents in its side, gleaming in the light of torches. The sight of it enraged me further. I could taste metal under my tongue. The poor creature had been savaged on a whim. It would have been all the wealth in the world to the people who lived here, but because the raiders couldn't steal it away with them, they had broken it as surely as they were breaking the people's homes.

Was it out of spite, or just for fun? I didn't know which was worse.

My attention lingered on the animals for a moment longer, and I wondered if I was staring at this sorry mutilated cow instead of the Ironborn because I couldn't bear to face the monstrosity of my fellow men.

I wrenched my gaze away, and looked to the men at last.

They were split in small groups, threes and fives, harrying the peasants around, chasing them. Sometimes a group would run into another, and the peasants would set off in another direction, harried by the new band instead. It was like the most fucked up game of football I had ever seen.

I curled my fingers tighter around the hilt of my sword and stepped forwards. I saw four corpses lying in the muck. There would be no more.

Someone noticed me. A figure skulking in the doorway of one of the few huts which wasn't burning pulled himself upright, and moved towards me. I could make out the shape of a sword at his hip and an axe fastened to his back. I scowled. So confident in the terror and butchery of the Ironborn that he didn't even feel the need to draw his weapon? It showed exactly how little threat the peasants posed. How unnecessary this all was.

A foul taste rose in my throat, bile but worse, accented with acid and copper and blood.

The warrior stepped out of the shadows, and I recognised him with a start.

"I'm sorry," said Baerag, dropping his gaze, hunching his shoulders. "I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't do it."

Suddenly I took him in again, looking him up and down. The sheathed sword. The holstered axe. The way he had hung back, lurking in the shadows away from the rest of the men. Away from their gruesome game of cat and mouse with the local fisherfolk.

"You were the strongest man here," I said, yanking him upright.

He wasn't strong enough to stop this, an uncharitable, weaselly voice said in the back of my mind. I pushed it down, tried not to think that way. It was unfair to expect one man to stand against fifty of his people. It would have been the right thing to do, perhaps, but he would not have succeeded. May not even have survived.

Baerag opened his mouth and then closed it again. Was it the firelight, or were his eyes shining wetly? I didn't want to know.

"I asked Greyjoy to stop them," he said. "She refused."

"Was this her doing?" I asked. Of course it was. She was the captain here. What was that Ironborn saying - a captain is the king of his own ship? Well this was her ship, here, destroying the lives and homes of innocents.

But Baerag shook his head.

"It was Darryn," he said. "He said he was taking the men out hunting, then we saw the fires. We followed them up here. I thought we were coming to stop them, but -" he choked up, words caught in his throat. I grabbed him by the arm, steadying him.

"What? Spit it out," I demanded, perhaps too ungently, but this setting didn't leave me with a kind manner.

"They joined in," he said, face white and horrified as he looked up at me. "They told me to grab an axe and break some heads. That it would make a man out of me." He looked at the ground, and under my hands I could feel him trembling. "I couldn't do it. I'm no Ironborn, no matter what Damphair says. I'm still just a thrall. Still too weak."

"Murdering people who can't fight back isn't a sign of strength," I urged.

"Greyjoy forbade murder," he said, giving me a wan smile. "She was furious that this happened." I looked at the corpses in the mud, and back to Baerag. From his expression, I could tell he shared my feeling.

A woman's voice cried out from one of the huts nearby. Baerag's face darkened.

"Did she forbid rape?" I asked.

He shrugged.

"Could any Ironborn captain enforce a rule like that?" he asked. The question was like a knife in my gut. Greece, Olympus, America and now here. It was always the same. People being awful to one another. For fun. For sport.

The Ironborn were somehow my people. That made me responsible for what they did. Inaction is also an action, not choosing also a choice. If I stood here and did nothing, I was complicit in what they did. Not just here. Not just tonight. If I stood back and let them carry on as they were, I would be culpable for every person harmed by an Ironborn.

These warriors worshipped the Drowned God because they knew the sea is fickle and treacherous, just like them. I was the son of Poseidon but I was not my father.

It was time to put the fear of Dad into them.

I let go of my sword and held onto my anger, driving it into the ground like a spike. I wished I had Poseidon's trident, and then, suddenly, felt its power surge inside me. I gathered all my fury, my frustration and despair and horror, gathered every scrap of passion and power I had and slammed it into the ground.

The earth shook.

I howled, and struck out again. The earth quaked, a deep rumble beneath my feet interrupting the chorus of shouts and screams. Everyone stopped moving, freezing and looking around in panic. Some primal instinct in me roared, adrenaline rising like mania at the sight of mortals struck down by fear of my wrath,

I strode forwards. Gale-force winds howled, tearing in from the sea. Thunder rumbled, but no lightning, never lightning. The ground rumbled again, as if in competition with the sky, and one of the burning huts collapsed.

The woman who had screamed appeared in a doorway, her dress torn but clutched about her. The man assaulting her must have let go in his surprise. I focused my power through the earth beneath that hut, constraining it in a narrow line. The earth groaned and bucked under my touch. It wanted to fracture along faultlines and cracks, along pressures built between the shifting edges of banks of rock and soil and sand beneath the surface. I didn't let it. I forced it in a tight beam, and the earth cracked open.

The shabby construction collapsed into a pit. I was tempted to linger, force the earth to close over it and bury him forever, but I forced myself to turn my attention away. There was more work to be done. More injuries than that one woman.

"This ends now!" I shouted, my voice carrying strangely on the wind, echoing and bouncing around the village instead of being torn away.

An Ironborn warrior rushed me. I didn't call Anaklusmos forth from the air. I wanted to feel his bones break under my fist.

I struck him high in the chest. The blow was hard enough to lift him off his feet. I heard his collarbone snap, and stepped over him. Behind me, Baerag unsheathed his sword and held it to the fallen man's throat, demonstrating his loyalties for everyone to see. I bared my teeth in something which wasn't quite a smile. Good.

The wind grew in its intensity, snuffing the torches first, and then tearing the flames from the wreckage of the village. There was a twisting column of fire in the air, around us, over us, and although I stood straight all the people around me were crouched to the ground. I couldn't tell if they were shoved down by the force of the wind or trying to get away from the fire.

As soon as it had begun, it was over. The fire consumed itself, and when the last ember was spent, the wind died. After the brightness of the flames, or perhaps because of the thick clouds which lay overhead, or both, the light of the stars was nothing at all.

We stood in darkness.

The only sound was the ragged sobbing of one of the victims kneeling at Asha Greyjoy's feet.

And then I called a different kind of fire out. St. Elmo's fire. It was a softer, eerie glow after the raging tempest of natural flame we had just seen. It appeared from the air, clinging to the tips of spears and the blades of swords, the wooden spars of the huts still standing, even the horns of the fallen cow.

The werlight of St. Elmo glowed in shades of blue and violet. Where fire would crackle, it buzzed like ball lightning. It clung in lines and lumps on the edges of things, illuminating the despoiled village like one of Poseidon's underwater halls.

An Ironborn dropped his sword with a shout and the violet fire hissed, sputtering out against the churned mud.

I stepped forwards, and made my way over to Asha Greyjoy.

"You dare lie to me?" I asked. "Lyseni pirates, you told me. At the Stepstones. You told me that you were going to turn the chase inside out, raid the raiders themselves. That was a worthy foe, mercenaries with iron in their hands, and golden plunder belowdecks for your prize."

There was fear in Greyjoy's face. I felt a moment of shame. She was only mortal. I was not. She could not hope to stand against me, but she swallowed her terror and stepped up to meet my challenge. To stand between her people and my rage. I could respect her for that, if not for anything else which had happened here.

"I didn't lie to you," she said, feigning nonchalance. I saw her throat move as she swallowed nervously, but no hint of it entered her voice. As she moved closer, her steps grew less tentative, and more like her normal swagger. Every eye was upon us. On her. These men didn't know me. They knew her. They wanted to see how she would do when confronting an angry demigod.

"This was just a stop along the way," she said, and then hesitated. Her eyes flicked over her men, and I could see her make a decision clear as day by the resolute way she set her jaw and stuck her chin out defiantly. "We needed supplies, and came across the village. They wanted gold, but we paid them the iron price!"

That didn't match up to the way Baerag had told it. Instead of putting the blame on unruly sailors, she was lying to take responsibility for the decision herself. I couldn't tell if she was protecting them or trying to hide the fact that she couldn't control them. I snorted. Both. Of course it was both.

"How can you pay the iron price when you're taking from people who have no iron to wield against you?" I demanded. "This has less honour than bargains and gold. You have won nothing. Earned nothing. Become. Nothing."

Asha flinched, but did not stop moving until she stood just a pace away from me.

"A captain who holds her men back from their sport won't be a captain for long," she said, daring me to look away with the fierceness of her glare. I could see more than one man in the throng behind her nod, and my anger burst back out.

"What matters more, your captaincy or your soul?" I snapped. "Are you a thrall, bound to serve the whims of other men, or are you the king of your own boat? Are you just a greenlander bandit or are you Ironborn?"

"I am Ironborn!" she shouted, all fear gone and replaced with anger of her own.

I turned in a slow circle, taking in the gazes of all the people surrounding me. The reavers whose entertainment had been stolen away, their terrified victims, Baerag's face shining white with fear and determination alike, and, last of all, Asha again, defiant in the face of a challenge to her character.

That defiance was something I could work with.

"My father has neglected you for too long," I said, addressing Asha but raising my voice to be certain everyone would hear. "The Ironborn have grown soft and weak." I picked my words carefully, bending the truth of what I wished to say. These people hardly thought in terms of right and wrong, just in strength and weakness. I had to speak to them in a way they would understand.

"Now I know the reason why. Raiding this meagre village, stealing fish in the night like common thugs? That's the mark of a warrior afraid to face his equal in battle. What has happened tonight was the work of weaklings better suited to pushing a plow than an oar!"

I saw shoulders stiffen in outrage, humiliation cutting through even the fear of divine reprisal. Exactly as I wanted. They were angry, but they were listening. My words were hurting them because I attacked their real weakness - these men knew they might die by the sword, and might be ready to battle a foe as fearsome as me, but they were hamstrung by their pride.

"I can see now why I am here," I declared, my voice almost risen to a shout. "I am Percy Jackson, born to a mortal woman and the Drowned God himself. I will make the Ironborn worthy of my father's patronage again. You will have the strength to stand as wolves of the sea beside me, or you will be exterminated like vermin, the rats who gnaw at the weak."

"Are you stealing my crew from me?" hissed Asha, voice pitched low enough that only I could hear her.

"Only if you oppose me," I whispered back. "Or you can fight beside me, and lead your people into a brighter future. Choose."

Asha dropped to one knee, slamming the haft of her axe into the mud. She stared at the ground in silence. The tension of her shoulders made me think she was about to swipe that axe across my legs and cut me down, but at last she raised her head, shaking her hair out of her eyes and meeting my gaze. The anger in her face was palpable, her knuckles white where she gripped her axe so tightly I imagined I could hear the leather bindings creak.

"Hail Percy Jackson!" she shouted. "Hail the Salt-King!"


	7. Chapter 7

Just past the village, a wide road wound its way along the coast. It was crude to my eyes, but I imagined it was an incredible luxury to the locals. It was wide enough for two wagons to pass with room to spare on either side, albeit not much.

It was also full of horses.

A broad man with red cheeks and bristly sideburns led the column of soldiers. They rode in neat rows of three, perhaps four or five men deep. We outnumbered them. It didn't matter. We weren't going to fight.

There was a strange badge embroidered into the leather hauberk of their leader, like a boar with the hide of a zebra. By the way the motif was repeated on all his soldiers armour, and even on the saddlecloth of some of the horses, I guessed this was the banner of his house.

I had ordered the Ironborn back to camp, but they had all come rushing back at the sound of hooves.

The leader of the zebra-pig people looked around in disgust, and I saw that the redness of his cheeks was anger, not exertion.

"Ironborn scum," he swore. "Reaving Westerosi shores is forbidden. The king will hear of this!"

Somebody laughed, and I could have punched them until I realised it was Asha.

"There won't be anyone left to tell him," she said. I clenched my teeth. Of all the times for her inane posturing to rear its ugly head, I loved this one the least. She might not care much for protecting the smallfolk, but she had ordered the killing to stop to curb her crew from running too far out of control. And I had doubled down on that order and demanded that the raid stop completely.

"An Ironborn woman?" the lord exclaimed in shock and revulsion. "Have the gods no shame?" Asha scowled, and was about to say something both of us would regret, so I stepped forwards.

"Nobody else dies tonight!" I said, pitching my voice to carry to both Ironborn and soldiers. The lord turned his eyes on me, and sneered.

"Are you the captain, then? You're barely older than a boy. What sort of warriors would follow you?"

Baerag stepped forwards now, his axe in his hands. I groaned at the sight of moonlight glinting off razor-sharp metal. This situation did not need to escalate.

"You speak to Perseus Lodos, son of the Drowned God. Show the proper respect, greenlander!" he shouted.

I placed a hand on his arm. He quieted down, and turned to me. I nodded, patting his arm, and he ducked his head, taking the hint and stepping back. I was glad to have an ally here, but I didn't want to solve all my problems with violence.

"I am Lord Roland Crakehall. You stand on my land. You have burned my village. Killed my people. I demand satisfaction, ser!"

The face of Lord Crakehall was wide and red, the type I'd normally see drunk and full of bluster. His broad frame and thick arms belied the impression his face gave, and I saw hard calluses on the hand which gripped the hilt of his sheathed sword.

"Ser?" mocked Asha. "Lodos is of our god, not your soft and flowery Seven."

"I demand satisfaction, goodman," repeated Crakehall, his voice low and threatening. "You captain these men, so you shall hang for reaving my shore."

"You're mistaken," I said. Crakehall's eyes narrowed in response, giving him a mean look. "This is the captain of the Black Wind, Asha Greyjoy." I gestured to her, and her mocking grin grew wider. She made a crude mockery of a curtsey, lifting imaginary skirts like a greenlander woman might do.

"Pray be gentle with me, milord," she said. "I've never had a man so great as you." Her eyes roved up and down Crakehall, and she accentuated her words by licking her lips and staring at him. More of this damned posturing! I could get behind mockery and rudeness as a response to fear. It was one of my go-to responses, sure. But only when I was trying to make things worse. Or was bored. Or fidgety.

Baerag laughed out loud at Asha's antics, and after a moment some of the others joined in. The sight of Ironborn laughing amidst the ruins of a village seemed to unsettle Crakehall, and he leaned back in his seat, nostrils flaring.

"Do you think I won't hang a woman?" he hissed.

"Roland!" cried out the man beside him. Crakehall hushed his protests in an instant.

"You are still mistaken," I said. Baerag chuckled, and I stifled a laugh myself this time, for Crakehall snapped his neck around like a whiplash, his cheeks swelling through red and into purple fury, visible even in the dim light from the torches his men carried.

I stepped forwards, again and again, until I stood away from the shelter of the Ironborn, and within swinging distance of a sword from the mounted soldier nearest me. I took care to approach the man beside Crakehall, and not the man himself. It wouldn't do to make him think I was threatening him.

I held my hands out, showing I was unarmed. So far as they could tell.

"This raid was not of Captain Greyjoy's doing," I said. She made a noise of protest at that, unhappy to see me undermine her authority in front of her crew and potential foes. I was irritated enough with her to not care. "She did what she could to moderate the violence until I arrived. I stopped it."

"You expect me to believe that you didn't kill anyone?" demanded Crakehall. "I recognise that look in your eyes. You're a man whose blood is up. You've been in a killing mood tonight."

Well, he wasn't wrong. My anger just wasn't directed at innocent smallfolk.

"He killed a man!" shouted someone else. I turned to see who it was, and my mouth opened in astonishment. It was the woman I'd seen flee from the hut I'd collapsed. That is, the one I'd collapsed deliberately. Half the village had been shaken down to nothing, and the other half had already burned away.

"So there we have it," said Crakehall, his lip curling upwards in an unpleasant smile. "Eyewitness testimony of murder. The sentence is death." A shiver seemed to run through the column of soldiers as they drew their swords. I raised an eyebrow, impressed by the timing, but unimpressed by the show of force. That kind of parade-ground showmanship did little good in the ugly brawls which my fights often ended up as.

The woman ran up towards us, clutching her torn dress to preserve what was left of her modesty.

"No, milord, wait!" she cried out. He raised a hand, and the soldiers remained in place, swords still drawn.

"Your name, woman?"

"Rosa, milord," she said, straightening up as best she could, and then dropping into a curtsey. Despite the fact that she was having to practically hold her dress up, it was more graceful than Asha's attempt.

"Tell me, Rosa. Why would I spare someone who has burned down your village and murdered one of your neighbours?" Lord Crakehall's tone was soft, inquiring. For all his fury, he was being delicate with the woman who had clearly just endured a terrible ordeal. My respect for the man rose with that simple act of compassion, and I resolved not to let him come to harm because he was unfortunate enough to live nearby.

I supposed that it was another point in his favour that he was here at all. The local lord had a duty to take care of the land, for sure, but I imagine there were a great many who would send their soldiers out without risking themselves. And certainly wouldn't haul themselves out of bed at this late hour to risk life and limb in defence of their poorest people.

"He didn't murder my neighbour, milord," she stammered out, looking first at the lord, then the ground, and finally settling on the horse. "He killed the man who was raping me. Collapsed the house on him, and stopped all the reavers. He put out the fires! And - and there was a wind, and…"

She trailed off, stammering her words into empty sounds. Crakehall looked at her with a kindly expression, if gruff. Some of the anger had ebbed away, his cheeks fading back to pink.

"Alright, goodwife," he said at last. "I hear you." He turned his attention back to me, and sighed.

"What is this, man? Have I just had the misfortune to host a mutiny among Ironborn?"

Asha reacted visibly, and by the way Crakehall's eyes followed her movement, it didn't go unnoticed. I sighed myself, and shook my head.

"Nothing so serious," I said. "This was just a place to pitch tents for the night, but one of the men saw the village here and decided to play bandit. Unfortunately he had friends, and then once they started smashing doors in, the rest of the crew got caught up in the chaos. This was never our destination, but sailors are a coarse lot. They tend to forget themselves once steel is in their hands."

Crakehall sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with gloved fingers. He looked up again, and our eyes met.

"Soldiers are much the same," he muttered, and for a second I felt a burst of camaraderie pass between us.

In a world like this, I could well imagine that soldiers would pillage and rape every bit as much as pirates would, just without the ships. I hoped against hope that Crakehall's familiarity with this type of man would get us through this. What had happened tonight was terrible, but surely he knew the odds of winning were unfavourable if he forced a fight on us. His men were mounted, but also had barely half our number.

And it was folly to come mounted against a son of Poseidon, but he wasn't to know that.

"Murder has been done tonight," the older man said. His words were slow, reluctant, as if dragged out of him against his will. Perhaps that's how it felt to him. Duty chiding him onwards like the devil on his shoulder. "Someone must hang for this. Which man led the raid? Tell me. He will face the King's justice."

"Who indeed?" I muttered to myself, before turning to face the massed Ironborn. They stood in closed ranks, an uneven but densely pressed mob. Some of them held weapons, others did not. All of them regarded Lord Crakehall with suspicion, and some even with contempt. Such was the attitude of Ironborn to a greenlander lord, I supposed. And criminals to what passed for the face of justice in the region.

"So who was it that led this raid?" I shouted. It wasn't really a question, for all that I was phrasing it as one. I knew they weren't going to answer. "Will you step forwards, claim your actions as your own?" Silence. Excellent. "No, I thought not! Because this raid was the act of a coward, perpetuated by a man with courage enough to face a fishwife and nobody strong enough to fight back."

There was an uneasy movement through the crowd, and several pairs of eyes flickered to one man, black-bearded and with a thick pewter ring through his ear.

"I'm the captain of the Black Wind!" interrupted Asha. "I led the raid." No you fucking didn't. Ballsy of you to step up, I'll admit, but your loyalty is misplaced protecting a sailor who won't even sit on his hands when told to.

"Who really started this?" I asked her. She didn't respond. I turned to Baerag.

"Baerag, tell me who started this," I said. He glared at me, and I realised that I'd just asked him to grass up an established figure in the community he wanted to join. On his first trip offshore as a real Ironborn reaver. Shit. That was thoughtless of me. He stayed silent as well, for all that he'd told me the name before. It was one thing to tell it to me, another to snitch someone out in front of an audience. I promised to find a way of apologising to him for putting him in a shitty situation, and looked away.

"You don't need to tell me," I declared. I didn't want to say that he'd already told me, not now. Oh well. I still have one card to play. "After tonight, you should all understand who I am. I came here at my father's behest to cull the weakness which is growing like a poison in the ranks of the Ironborn. I swam from Pyke itself for this. Darryn, step forwards."

There was a muttering and grumbling among the crew, and no small amount of shoving. Once Darryn realised that his compatriots were going to force him to face the music, Darryn straightened his shoulders and barged his way out from his hiding spot behind his mates, everything about his stance and swagger saying that it was his decision to step out.

"I've led hundreds of raids against pissant villages!" he bellowed. "I've razed towns from the Frozen Shore to the Smoking Sea because I'm a trueborn iron reaver. That's what we do!" He spat on the floor, drawing his sword. "Who are you to stop me?" he demanded, glaring at me, and then turning to sneer at Asha. "And who the fuck are you to tell me what to do? You're not a captain, you're just a cunt whose daddy bought her a boat."

Asha decked him. Or tried to. He leaned out of the way and kicked her in the gut. She doubled over, and he landed a punch on the side of her head, sending her toppling to the earth. She wheezed for breath, curled into a foetal position. I couldn't see her face, only her back, but all of her posture and swagger had gone. She folded herself inwards, making herself small like a child enduring a beating, and maybe that's what would have happened if I'd let things continue.

"Captain Darryn has a mighty fine ring to it. What say you, lads?" he called out. "Put this cunt to the sword, and follow a real man to raid wherever we please!"

Nobody responded. Between the thirty or so soldiers and the display of divine wrath so fresh in their minds, nobody was climbing aboard his sinking ship, even if they would prefer to sail under his colours.

And so it came to be that he turned to face me, sword in hand, sneer on face, and all the sense of a rabid dog in his eyes. He bared his teeth in a snarl, revealing crooked yellow rows of stained enamel.

"This is all your doing," he said. Crakehall snorted, and behind me, Baerag laughed quietly.

The sound of the laugh must have pushed Darryn over the edge. He rushed at me, axe swinging like a great pendulum, an inarticulate roar spilling out of his mouth. I saw him approach as if in slow motion, his mortal body unable to compete with the lightning-fast reflexes of a son of Hermes or daughter of Athena.

I caught his axe mid-swing. One handed. He jerked as his momentum carried him forwards even as I pulled the axe from his grip. I tossed it carelessly to one side. He swung at me, and although I saw it coming a mile away, I let the blow land. It struck the soft tissue of my stomach, but I clenched my muscles in the right way to take the punch, and didn't react at all.

Credit to him, he continued his assault unfazed, pulling out a cruel looking dagger and jabbing it towards my face.

I had enough time to consider whether to catch the blade again, or lean out of the way. I settled on neither. As Darryn had done to Asha, I kicked out, striking him in the gut. I followed it up with a punch to the side of the head, and he crumpled. The symmetry was pleasing. Poetic, almost. I hoped Baerag was taking notes for whatever stories were inevitably going to be told about this night. Let the people know Percy Jackson smacks punks down with a sense of style.

He recovered quicker than Asha, rolling onto his side and levering himself up onto his feet. He looked dazed, nauseous even, and I wondered if that was just the kick to the stomach or if I'd given him a concussion.

I turned my back on him, facing Lord Crakehall again. Here we go, a leaf out of Asha's book. A stupid power move, all posture and all idiocy. Turning my back on a foe, even a wounded one, would have me whipped by Chiron. Definitely figuratively, maybe literally if he actually saw it happen.

"He's all yours," I said to Crakehall. Crakehall shouted in warning, and I grinned. Just as planned.

Darryn's hands closed around my neck, squeezing. Oh, he was going to throttle me? That was interesting. I had expected a sucker punch, maybe even a knife to the kidney if I was unlucky, though I'd walk it off with the aid of a midnight swim.

I reached up, taking his hands gently and pulling them away from my neck. He grunted in exertion as he tried to fight back, but my strength was so far beyond his it was like manhandling a child.

My turn to squeeze. He cried out as I crushed his hands. It was only for a moment, but that was enough for the crunch of little bones to let me know that I'd effectively disarmed him for the rest of his short and miserable life.

I dropped his hands, and kicked out backwards, not even bothering to look. My foot impacted against his knee, which bent at the wrong angle. I hadn't kicked hard enough to break it, but he fell once more, and this time he stayed there, cradling his broken hands.

"As I said, he's all yours," I repeated.

"Samson, Nat," barked Crakehall. "Take the prisoner."

Two men detached from the column and rode over, only dismounting once they were right beside me. On the far side, where nobody could look, I reached up to scratch the horse's flanks. Well, Baerag and Crakehall could see. Of all the people here, I was fine with them seeing me show a horse a bit of affection. No need to posture for those two, at least.

They tied Darryn's arms together. In front of him, not behind his back, which could have meant trouble if not for his broken hands. I felt a twinge of guilt at maiming him, but consoled myself with the knowledge that he wouldn't have to suffer for long. Odd that I'd feel guilt for one and not the other, but there it was. He would die to broker peace with Crakehall, instead of being cut down by me. It was little different. Bargaining away the lives of men for gold was the work of slavers, but bargaining lives to save yet more lives was the work of a leader. And I would lead these Ironborn out of depravity and dishonour whether they wanted it or not.

"It's not enough," said Crakehall, above me. He tugged at his reins and wheeled his horse around until it faced me head on. Being face to face with a trained warhorse is an intimidating sight for most men. But most men aren't born of the house of Poseidon.

The column behind Crakehall mirrored him, all turning to face me. Me, not the fifty-odd Ironborn cluttering up the shoreline. I was flattered.

I reached up a hand, placing it on the side of Crakehall's horse's head. It whickered quietly, and he tugged at the reins, hard, to keep its attention clear.

"Swords," he ordered. It was unnecessary, as they were all already out except his. He pulled it from its sheath, and held it to my throat. "You are either a man of unusual honour for an Ironborn or a treacherous snake, goodman. I dare not take the risk."

I rubbed the horse's cheek with a knuckle and met its great brown eye. For such a powerful beast, it had long, delicate lashes like one of Aphrodite's favourite daughters. I looked into the horse's eyes, the so-called window to the soul, and spoke to it, to all the horses behind and beside it.

"Throw your riders," I said. I could have spoken silently, mind-to-mind, but I wanted my audience to hear.

As one, as perfectly synched as if they had practiced this manoeuvre on the parade-grounds while the soldiers had all practiced unsheathing their swords at once, the horses bucked, rearing and kicking and throwing their riders.

Some of them had very secure seats, with well-made saddles, but even so they fell at once. The suddenness of the horses' rebellion meant that nobody had time to ready themselves for a fight to hold on. After twenty seconds, perhaps five men were still mounted.

"Enough!" I cried, holding up a hand. The horses stilled in an instant. Some of the fallen soldiers were bruised, some bleeding where hooves had flung up rocks or struck them direct, but none had been trampled to serious injury.

I reached down, and helped Lord Crakehall to his feet.

"What sorcery is this?" he whispered, his face pale.

"Not sorcery," I answered. "My old man is a god. His domain obeys my commands."

"The Drowned One is no horsegod," said Crakehall. I shrugged, still holding him. I feared that he might drop if I let go, he was so slumped against me. He hadn't fallen that badly, had he? I hoped it was just the shock of the fall, and not an injury I couldn't see.

"The Ironborn only know him as the Drowned God, sure," I said conversationally. "But he is so much more. Here, hold this," I said, handing him the reins to his own horse. He clutched at them, and I guided him to lean on the horse instead of me. I took a step back. He blinked, and seemed to collect himself, stooping to pick up his dropped sword and resheathe it.

"Are we good?" I asked.

"I don't know that I'd ever describe an Ironborn as good," he said. His shoulders slumped, and then he gave a weary chuckle. "There's no way this ends well, is there?" he asked, looking over his shoulder to where his soldiers were struggling to climb to their feet, or else scrabbling on hands and knees to reclaim dropped swords from between the legs of the horses. Their hesitance to go near the limbs which had been thrashing a minute ago didn't speed things up, not at all.

The Ironborn creeped forwards, fanning out. Naked steel was in the air, and although they weren't rushing to slay the soldiers while they were helpless, they were beginning to form a half-circle surrounding them, trapping many of them between untrustworthy steeds and bare blades.

"There is a way that it ends," I promised. "And that can be good enough for all of us. You have your murderer to hang, and I have my people to get in order. Away from your lands."

Crakehall watched the Ironborn a little longer as their position became more and more advantageous even as the soldiers began to right themselves. They'd lost the advantage of their mounts, and now the horses served only as a wall to pen them in.

"Then let it end," said Crakehall.

The soldiers mounted up reluctantly, needing much prodding and cajoling from the lord before they were finally underway. The now-destitute and homeless smallfolk followed along. Crakehall left me with the instruction not to linger past the morning. Huh. Implicit permission to keep our camp for the night. Surprisingly generous of him, considering. I had half-planned on instructing Asha to have the crew move a few miles down the shore, but decided against it.

All the men he could easily muster, he'd have brought with him. It was improbable that he'd be able to gather a larger force and return before the next day, even were he inclined to do so. The camp would likely go unmolested throughout the night. It was best to stay here with one eye open.

Some of the Ironborn set to gathering firewood. The unburnt remnants of broken houses. It turned my stomach to use the pieces of houses we'd destroyed, but it made more sense than going cold all night. It was too dark by now to hunt for wood further afield, and I didn't care to invite the argument of why it was loathsome to pick through the ashes for timber.

"How did you find your first raid?" I asked Baerag. He placed his hand on his sword, looking at me with revulsion written clear on his features.

"Greyjoy spun the same story for me," he said. "Lyseni pirates with holds full of gold and silk and spice and all the other foreign riches. I wanted to win my place in battle, not in butchery."

"They're often the same thing," I said.

"In the stories, reaving is a brave thing. Something men full of courage and low cunning do. Sneaking inland under the cover of darkness, stealing a kiss from a fine lady in a castle then fighting their way out with pockets stuffed with silver to bring home to their wives."

"Are there no stories about burning down villages?"

"Dunstan the Spark torched three hundred acres of farmland," Baerag said grimly. "Burned the grain in its fields to starve the army marching to port, ready to sail for our Iron Islands. Qalos Sixfinger rescued a score of smallfolk from their cruel lord, burning their village to hide their escape and setting them as thralls on Old Wyk, raising freeborn iron sons and daughters. There are stories. None are like this."

"There could be," I said, cautiously. "If there was somebody willing to tell this story.

"This story?" he asked. "Tonight?"

I nodded.

"Damphair wasn't here to witness it, so it'll have to come from you. Maybe it'll be easier to keep it straight in your head since you saw it yourself?" I suggested. He shrugged, looking unconvinced.

"I thought you didn't like people telling tales about you?"

"This is more important," I urged. "I want them to know what the Ironborn are supposed to be. Bold warriors, skilled sailors. Not base thugs and bandits. I want the people to know that there's another way of doing things, a better way, and I'm offering it to them."

Baerag frowned.

"So shouldn't we tell the stories of glorious victories instead of - of this mess? Once we have stories to tell, I mean," he added hastily. "I don't mean that we should make them up."

I paused, and contemplated Baerag's suggestion. Maybe that's what some people would do, whitewash out the ugly parts of history. That wasn't how I wanted to be remembered. Ashamed of my deeds. No. I did what I did with pride and conviction, certain in the knowledge that I was doing the right thing.

"The story of tonight isn't of the petty victory over ten fishermen and their families," I said at last. "It's the story of how somebody saw evil happening and stood up to put an end to it. We won't tell people this because we're proud of what happened before I got here. We'll do it to show the turning point where the Ironborn regained their pride as warriors and became worthy of the Drowned God's favour."

I sat down by the side of the fire as it was being built. Men bustled around us, carrying armloads of wood and other supplies pilfered from the ruins. I tried not to look too closely at the man who hauled a crate of smoke-blackened turnips past me. The victims of tonight's raid might return to get what few possessions and items of food had survived the violence and the flames. I hoped that Crakehall's compassion extended far enough to feed them while they rebuilt their homes.

"Tell me," I said, gesturing for Baerag to sit beside me. He squatted awkwardly on the sand. "How many men do you think would have followed Darryn tonight if I hadn't been here?"

"Five, maybe?" he guessed, sounding uncertain.

"And if the soldiers hadn't been here?"

"I hardly know these men!" he protested. "Just reputation for a few, and three days aboard the Black Wind. It's hard to get to know someone while you're pulling an oar."

"Just give me a guess," I said, encouragingly. He sighed, drawing a long, looping line in the sand with the tip of a finger.

"Fifteen? No more than twenty," he said.

"So," I said. "A third of the crew would mutiny for a drop of greenlander blood." My voice wasn't quiet, and it carried. Baerag winced, and the men around us hurried on their chores more quickly. There were a couple who gave me nasty looks, and I marked their faces in my memory. One had a pewter ring and black hair, the same as Darryn, though clean-shaven. Siblings, perhaps? There was a strong resemblance. I thought that I remembered him shoving Darryn out to face Crakehall, so perhaps he wasn't overly fond of his brother. Or maybe he was just self-interested enough to sell him out to save his own skin.

"Do you know what it took for me to betray my people?" I asked. Baerag shifted uneasily, and did not answer. I leaned forwards, watching the flickering tongues of the fire as it began to build. Sparks of green and blue were hidden among the sea of red and orange, little flecks of salt burning up where driftwood had soaked up the chemistry of the ocean.

"Nothing," I said, when it was clear he wasn't going to reply. "I have never turned on my friends. Never. Men who live too close to the sea can sometimes become too much like it. Strong, yes, but also cold and hard and cruel. The sea is fickle. We do not need to be."


	8. Chapter 8

"You really should let me take a turn at the oar," I said, hunkered awkwardly in the prow of the longship with Asha.

"We've broken in one new oarsman at your insistence," she replied, not even turning to look at me. She stared out over the sea, watching some distant point on the horizon. "I'm not suffering through that again."

"I'm not exactly new to sailing," I protested. Really, this was ridiculous. I didn't even need an oar. Or oarsmen. I could sneeze and drive the ship a thousand leagues with the force of it. I could furl the sail in becalmed seas and watch the ship cut through the waves like a hurricane was behind her. Hell, I could lash three porpoises together with a length of kelp and shout hi-ho silver until they hauled us along.

But no, Greyjoy didn't want me interfering. Lousy woman. I had a feeling that she was deliberately sequestering me here, her own body interspaced between me and her crew as an obstacle to even block their sight of me.

I guess I was a pretty distracting presence after last night. Baerag was tucked away towards the stern, alternately getting scolded for falling out of synch with his efforts on the oar, or told to stop looking up at us and focus on his rowing.

Asha spat over the side, ladylike as an Ironborn was ever wont to be.

"Go near an oar and I'll bite yer cock off," she said, her words a low drawl that I sincerely hoped was deadpan humour, but had to admit probably wasn't.

"My cock isn't going anywhere near your mouth," I replied. She sniffed in response, then gave me a wicked smile a moment later. It lit up her features, softening the impact of her overlarge nose, and making her grey eyes gleam like moonlight reflected in a still pool.

I still wasn't going to put my cock anywhere near her mouth, though. Even if her dental hygiene was a step above the average here.

"Where are you going to put it, then?" she asked.

I ignored the flirtatious hint to her voice. She was just messing with me, testing me. There was nothing sincere about this, and, worse, every ear on the ship was listening. By the looks on some of the faces around us, the crew was very possessive of their female captain. I could guess where the jealousy in the younger members came from. The older ones might just hold fatherly affection for her, but knowing the appetites of the Ironborn I wouldn't put it past them to want to fuck her anyway. Or their own daughters.

Not for the first time, I bemoaned the lack of civilised company. At least back on Pyke Damphair was celibate and Harritt couldn't get laid. After studying the history of the gods' tragedies and romances, I've come to understand one thing above all else: watching men bicker over women was the lamest thing in the world.

Asha nudged me with her hip, and I realised that she was actually waiting for a response to that absurd question.

"I think I'm happy with my cock where it is," I said dryly. She was just poking at me to get a reaction. I wasn't going to give her one. After years spending my summers dodging the daughters of Aphrodite, I had an excellent poker face.

"What man is happy with it tucked into his trousers?" she asked ,and then nudged me again, harder. "I think I know what the problem is. What is dead may never die - has it died on you? Do you need Damphair to kiss it back to life with the Drowned God's blessing?"

I tried not to gag. I succeeded. I tried to resist the urge to shove her away. I failed.

She let out a yelp of surprise, scooted backwards awkwardly, and fell on her arse. She tumbled over the bench she'd been standing in front of, and fell behind it, clocking her head on the knee of the sailor behind her. Her legs flailed up in the air, kicking feebly.

And then the swearing came.

I waited for the stream of profanity to subside before I offered her a hand.

"Decency has a limit, even for a reaver," I said in mock admonishment. She huffed, and slapped my hand away, hauling herself back upright and rubbing at the back of her head. The sailor who she had fallen onto cringed, and not without cause for she turned on him.

Fists were on her hips, and her boot nearly whacked him in the face as she carelessly swung her legs around to face the sailor. I couldn't see her expression, but I could see his, and that told me all I needed to know.

He quailed under whatever he could see in her, and his rowstroke faltered. With the beat of motion disturbed, his elbow knocked into the man behind him. It cascaded from there. It was like watching dominoes fall, but worse. A nuclear reaction as it hit critical mass. On a rowboat.

A chorus of voices filled the air with insults and complaints as the smooth motion of the boat devolved into anarchy. The ship itself juddered, and timbers creaked, as every man tried to row to uneven timing, to correct for the mistakes, and making the problem worse because every man among them had the opinion that his efforts alone were correct.

Exactly one thing happens when fifty men are rowing wildly against each other. Oars are fouled and broken.

"Hold!" bellowed the coxswain. "Hold, damn you, hold! Any man touching an oar loses his share of plunder!"

It was too late. Timber struck timber, cracking like thunder and cracking in truth. There was a sharp snap midships, and a man howled out in pain. The raw, animal sound of it finally cut through the belligerence which had clogged up the ears of the sailors, and they dropped their oars.

Asha was there in moments, pushing her way through the crew to reach the injured man. He cradled the limb, wet spots of pain in his eyes and seeping in scarlet through his shirt.

"Broken," she muttered, and grasped his shirt with one hand. She pulled out her dagger, and cut the sleeve off. She was rough in her actions, and the oarsman cried out, but she was also swift, and soon the fabric fell free. She pressed against it in places, ignoring his protests as she felt for where the bone had broken.

I forced myself to watch as she bound it up, using the cut sleeve as the base for a crude sling. I blamed myself for this. I'd shoved her and started this whole mess going. I steeled myself for a tongue-lashing. Hell, for an actual lashing. It would be justified. On a ship like this, being whipped against the mast for messing up a row-stroke was a very real possibility.

The coxswain slipped up and down the length of the ship, making a headcount of men sitting at useless stations with broken oars. Not all had been damaged, and of those damaged, most had just been scraped and warped. We were lucky, relatively speaking.

This was why sailors took newcomers very seriously. With the way they were packed so densely, motion flowing in and out of one another's space in seamless harmony, the slightest mistake could have immediate consequences.

"I'll take responsibility for this," declared Asha, straightening up and walking away from her patient. She made her way back to where I stood, and gave me an undeserved smile. There was no warmth in it, just a deliberate display that she held no hostility towards me. "I distracted Grymer while he was on duty. That's my failure as captain."

The coxswain grimaced, and then beat his hefty wooden cudgel against a sea chest tucked under the bench nearest him.

"Hear that, you motherless dogs? You have a reprieve. You will have no other. Now! I must take stock. Hold fast, and pull your oars when I touch your shoulder. Be grasping oar without my touch, you'll be buggered ten times by a kraken on your way to the Drowned God's hall."

He strode to the end of the ship opposite me, and slapped a meaty paw onto the shoulder of the furthest man. One careful motion of the oar later, and he nodded.

"Sound wood, easy motion. Good. Drop it!"

The oarsman released it hurriedly, and the oar thudded into its resting position against the side of the ship.

This continued for a few men, until the coxswain found something not to his satisfaction. He scowled and grumbled, and had the oarsman haul his oar on board. Asha joined him, inspected the length of the timber with a scowl.

"Warped, haft and blade," said the coxswain.

"It's salvageable," replied Asha. The coxswain snorted.

"For a crannogman's coracle, mayhaps. Or firewood."

Asha grunted, but didn't argue. I guess for all her blatant issues with her authority, she knew to acknowledge the opinions of specialists and experts when the situation demanded it. That was good. It would win her the respect of her men, especially those experienced enough to know something of these matters. Everyone grows malcontent under a boss who demands to have things done their way instead of the right way. Captains twice her age could do to learn that lesson, as often as not.

The two of them made their way up the ship, inspecting the oars. When it was done, perhaps one in ten had been stowed on the ship as a write-off, or just so poor that it was more risk than the potential gain of another oar would be.

This whole time, we were drifting off-course, the ship turned at an odd angle by the chaos and driven along in that direction by the wind in our sail.

"Listen up," called Asha, raising her voice. "This is nothing new. Yesterday we broke in Baerag with a skeleton crew to ease him in. Today we'll do the same. Ten rowers until we get to shore, then I'll move you around to even the ship. We'll lose a day, but we'll keep the ship. If we try to carry on with a quarter more strength to starboard, we'll either sail in a circle or crack the rest of the oars when we should be cracking skulls."

There was an outburst of groans and shouts. More than one sailor stood up from his bench to below objections. Exact words were stolen away by the noise, but I fancied I understood the gist. Nobody wanted to be trapped at sea for an extra day, creeping along at a snail's pace.

I saw a couple of sailors give Asha particularly dirty looks. Accepting her offer to take the blame, I see. Somehow I didn't interpret that as them following her instruction. This was my fault! At least partly. Maybe ten percent my fault, ten percent Asha's, and the remainder the damn fool who let a scowling girl stop him from doing his job properly.

Well, this was my chance to make amends. While the coxswain bellowed and Asha tried to shout over the din as well, I caught my bearings.

My sense of direction was beginning to come back to me. These seas were no longer alien, now that I was sailing upon them and had swum beneath them. I glanced at the sun and the clouds and the long flat line of the horizon. There it was.

I felt the characteristic tug behind my navel, like I had swallowed a compass. Was it an ability to navigate, or simply my destiny calling me forwards? I'd never truly known. It didn't matter. I would always end up where I needed to be. It's just how getting lost is, when your dad sits on Mount Olympus.

The shouting was probably just dissatisfaction. I wondered if it would be best to wait it out, let Asha regain control, and only then intercede. But then I decided to indulge the part of me which was a gaudy showoff, the part I definitely inherited from Olympus.

At the same time, the breeze died and the longship began to accelerate. Men cried out, and fell silent. Those who had stood to rage at their superiors fell back to their seats.

The ship sped up more, and more, until it was exceeding the top speed we had reached when all the rowers had been labouring away.

Yeah. I'm that good.

"We don't need to lose any time," I said mildly. They all looked at me, more confused than awed. Damn. Maybe they were getting too used to me. I hadn't expected applause, exactly, but a dropped jaw or two wouldn't go amiss. It was the correct response for a mortal witnessing the glory that is Percy Jackson, wasn't it?

"Just sit tight, I'll see that we keep to our schedule." I focused, and with a little effort the wind began to pick up again. It whistled, then roared, then died back down to a steadier, constant thrum in my ears. Ah, there we go. Perfect.

The ship sped up even more as the wind was added to the propulsion I was creating from displacing the water beneath the keel. I put my hands behind my head and leaned against the railing, winking at the befuddled coxswain.

"I dare say we can even shave a day or two off our journey. How does a swift journey and a chest full of plunder sound to everyone?"

There was some busy-work to be done over the next few hours. As the ship was moving under my guidance, Asha had all the men haul their oars fully on-board for a deeper inspection. She exchanged a muffled, unhappy sounding word with the coxswain from time to time, sometimes asking his opinion, and sometimes just bemoaning the state of affairs.

It was going to cut into the profit for her voyage. Not a lot. But it took some of the shine off the raid, and we hadn't even met our foes in battle yet. There was a bit of grumbling. Without the grueling exercise of rowing to distract them, all the crew were off-duty but Asha and the coxswain whose name I still didn't know. They had nothing to do but talk, drink, and complain.

A ration of rum had been released in an attempt to soothe tempers. It had lightened the mood for some, and soured it for others. I felt no different, save that I had to get up to piss over the side rather more frequently than I'd like.

Baerag tapped his ivory piece against the game board, and I turned my attention back to him.

"Watching the captain again?" he asked, teasingly.

It was good that he was coming out of his shell enough to joke with me like that, but I didn't want him getting any ideas. I shook my head, and made a slitting motion across my throat. He grinned, probably thinking I was denying it.

"Watching her work, that's all," I said.

"Uh-huh," he replied noncommittally, sliding the carved figure across the board. I moved one of my pieces in response, and he cackled in glee. "God's truth, man!" he swore. "You really haven't played tablut before, have you?"

"I did tell you."

"I thought you were just being modest," he said. "You can do things I'd never have believed if I hadn't seen them. I expected you to be a master strategist as well." He slid another piece over, capturing one of mine and breaking open the line of defensive figures which simulated men-at-arms guarding a castle wall. Behind them, my poor little king was probably beginning to feel pretty exposed.

"Battle strategy is something I can do," I argued, sabotaging the argument with my next move. "It's just puzzles I can't wrap my head around. Moving little pieces and finding patterns in diagrams. It's too fake. Half the things I do work on instinct, I can't plot them out in a game like this."

Baerag slid through my castle wall like a dagger between my ribs. I thought he was my friend, but no, foul betrayal at the earliest opportunity!

"Fuck this ghetto excuse for chess," I complained, seeing my doom approach but unable to see a way out of it. Give me a minotaur and something pointy to hit it with, any day.

"You play cyvasse?" asked Baerag. I paused, considering his words. Nope. Not just the accent. He said a different word altogether.

"I think chess is different," I said. "But I don't know what cyvasse is."

Baerag took my king, and I threw up my hands, speaking hastily. To the point of rudeness, probably. But he wouldn't mind.

"I don't want to learn how to play cyvasse today, either!" I added quickly. He chuckled, and began sweeping the inch-high ivory men into a leather pouch.

It had been a long, dull day for everyone and tempers were beginning to fray. Even my patience was wearing thin after six games of tablut in a row, a local variant of chess which involved a player on the outer edge of the board attacking a cluster of pieces in the centre, like a mock-up of raiders assaulting a castle from four directions. A rather fitting game for the Ironborn, but I was pants at it.

"No, I will not sit down!" bellowed someone rather irate down by the stern. I was glad of the distraction from my repeated losses, but this didn't fill me with joy. I watched carefully out of the corner of my eye, pretending my attention was still on tidying up the game.

"My oar is busted," he shouted. "An' you're tellin' me it's coming out of my share? Mine! I was trying to fix the drift from that bastard Grymer dropping his pace 'cause he was too busy looking at your tits."

Asha shoved the red-faced coxswain out of the way before he could respond, and got right up in the shouting reaver's face. She squared up to him, hands curled into fists and placed on her hips, legs splayed wide like a man sitting on the tube. It was a good stance, powerful and dominant, full of bluster. Someone had clearly grown up watching and idolising these pirates fight amongst themselves.

"Nobody on this boat gets a share of my tits," she snarled.

Oh dear. That was not the right things to say. Raucous laughter broke out, but it was mean and unpleasant, more spite than humour. The only saving grace was that the crew seemed to be laughing at both of them, and not just one.

It made no difference to the angry man. He lifted his broken oar, and swung it as best he could.

Although his arms were like tree trunks, and he had trained at that oar harder than a bodybuilder on stage, it was too long and heavy to be used as a weapon. He swept it clumsily through the air, and I couldn't even guess who he was aiming at. It ended up catching someone under the chin as he lifted it, slamming their teeth together with a click I could hear all the way from up here.

That was why the first punch flew. The second one was unprompted, not even one of those two men, but another a few benches over trying to hit his neighbour for reasons I could only guess at. Irritation after sitting beside him all day? Plain old malice and high-spirits at the prospect of a brawl?

Asha, damn her hide, was the third into the fray. And she drew steel. Was she trying to get them to calm down by escalating further than they wanted to go? Bad idea. Really bad idea. She nicked the man who had swung the oar, drawing a single drop of red blood. Just a pinprick thrust to get his attention.

She was flat on her back a moment later and his axe was in his hand.

It felt like the entire crew decided to join in.

Fuck. That.

I capsized the ship.

Screams and flailing ensued. There was a great deal of panic, and almost as much splashing. I stayed on my seat, sitting normally despite being upside down and underwater. All around me, the crew beat their limbs against the water, cracked their heads on the ship, and generally failed at getting out of the mess I'd put them in.

A fair few of them managed to gather themselves enough to start swimming, but more than one of those ended up so disoriented that they swam in completely the wrong direction - straight down.

Some men just sank, weighed down by leather and metal.

I let it happen for a minute or two, and then pulled everyone into position beneath the upturned ship. I held them in place with the pressure of the sea, putting them on their benches, gathering up all the fallen oars and cups and sword and other shit which had fallen and drifted away. Littering in the ocean wasn't cool. And I'm very cool, so I don't litter in the ocean.

It didn't take me long. Everyone was just as they had been before, but calmer, helped along by a little bit of bona-fide physical restraint by the fact that they were suspended upside-down beneath the sea.

Once they were suitably freaked out, I flipped the Black Wind again.

Doing something like that took a crazy amount of skill. The planks weren't even nailed down - they were cut with grooves so they could be taken up and removed at need. I held them in place, held all the loose bits and bobs along with fifty thrashing men, and spun an entire ship like it was a two-man kayak. Most impressive of all, I made sure it didn't shatter under the pressure.

I am unappreciated in my time, like so many artists. But, just like Van Gogh, Picasso, and all the rest, while unappreciated, at least anyone seeing my masterpiece would be scared shitless of me. And that's a big win for Percy Jackson the pirate king.

Whoa. Hold up. That was a thought I wasn't expecting to have. And not one I wanted to have. Put it down, Percy. You're a hero, not a pirate.

As a finishing touch, I drained all the water from the nooks and crannies of the ship, even from the crew. Half god or half hair dryer? Why not both! At no extra cost!

The last of the sea trickled out of the Black Wind, and the crew dared to breathe.

Baerag, shivering, pale, and staring at me with those hopeless wide eyes, opened his mouth.

He threw back his head and roared with laughter.

It was a good laugh, honest and full of emotion. Mirth, yes, and warmth, enough to almost mask the hit of mania to it. That was alright. He was borderline in shock from his icy dunk. This was a healthy reaction to burn out the feelings so he could process what had just happened. Best of all, it set off a chain reaction just like the brawl, but this time with a good nature.

Asha made her way gingerly across the boards and sat on the bench opposite us.

"That's the closest I've been to a mutiny in a while," she muttered. Baerag was the only other one who could hear, and his laugh broke up abruptly. He ducked his head, scooting over on his seat to huddle closer to us.

"That was just a punch-up!" he protested. "It would have been over in a minute even if Percy hadn't interrupted it."

She gave him a grim look, jaw set and lips pressed tightly against one another.

"That oaf Holdrunn kicked off saying he didn't want me taking the cost of the oar out of his share, yeah?" she asked.

The question was rhetorical, but Baerag and I both nodded along anyway. I chanced a look at Holdrunn out of the corner of my eye. Was he one of Darryn's compatriots? I couldn't tell. Maybe he'd been one of the ones looking askance at Asha, or at me, but these Ironborn were a scowly bunch half the time anyway, so it wasn't easy to tell.

"I didn't say a damn thing about that. Maintenance comes out of the ship's share. It's why the ship takes a share. He pulled that shit out of his arse and tried to smear me with it."

"Potent imagery," I said, groaning at her words.

"Out of nowhere," she continued. "I wasn't even speaking to him. I was half the ship away, trying to keep Droopeye Dale out of the rum."

I picked up on what had happened right away, and bit back a curse. Baerag still looked confused. He was innocent to some of the ways of shitty people, despite having grown up on the Iron Islands. I wondered if he'd had a particularly sheltered life, away from the bulk of the Ironborn, or if he was just one of those people who had no inclination to plots and treachery himself, and so struggled to see it in others.

"Holdrunn was trying to set something off," I explained for his sake. "Maybe not a mutiny outright, not today, but it'd sow the seeds for something later down the line. Get folks to thinking that they were being treated unfairly, that there was someone willing to stand up for them."

"Horseshit," spat Asha. I held up a hand placatingly, although I agreed.

"Truth doesn't matter. Not when tempers are high and frustrated men are crammed like fish in a barrel. The only thing which matters is if they think they're getting their due. If they think you're cheating them, the whole thing will go up like dry leaves in a furnace." I spoke quietly, trying not to be overheard, but the man on the bench just behind Asha leaned over and joined the conversation anyway.

"Aye," he said. "Sailors can endure any hardship so long as the man next to him is suffering just as much, working just as long. It's like you saw with the oars. Keep it all in balance. Too much or too little for even just one, and it breaks the rhythm for the whole ship."

He had a massive red beard, braided here and there with gold rings. The style of engraving looked foreign, and I imagined it was loot from some past raid to an exotic place. His hair was thinning, but still thick and curly and red, and what remained of it was bound back in a short tail. Oddly enough, his beard was much longer than his hair would have been, had it been free to hang around his face. It suited him, as did the colossal two-handed sword which poked out from behind one shoulder. It wasn't sheathed, just wrapped in sailcloth and hung on a leather strap.

"Is the Black Wind fair?" asked Asha. An odd note crept into her voice, and I realised that she was hunting for approval. The bluster, the pretence that she already had and deserved all the accolades in the world, that had all disappeared.

The sailor shrugged, and slid his legs over the bench to come sit closer by us to prevent the conversation from growing louder. It was pleasingly savvy of him, and for that alone, I had no great objections to him joining a discussion which would cause problems if the crew overheard.

"By and large," he said, shrugging. "Lots of old hands who can keep their heads down and get on with it, deal with little problems instead of bringing them to the captain. The Greyjoy's influence, I'd wager."

Asha scowled, and spat. It landed on the planking by my foot, and I flicked it out into the open sea with a twist of will.

The sailor whistled in appreciation.

"I told him not to interfere," she said sullenly. The sailor nodded sagely.

"Can't stop a father taking care of his girl, now. Even when she can do it herself."

"What about you, Rustbeard?" she demanded suddenly. "Did Father install you here to watch me? I want to know, Roggon!" At his name, she raised her voice, drawing a bit of attention from the others. He hushed her, and she quieted down. The interested looks hung on us, and I paid careful attention to who looked to be listening too closely.

"No, I'm spying on Baerag here," he admitted freely. We all blinked at that. Baerag? I hadn't been expecting that, of all people. Baerag was a good man, for an Ironborn, but he wasn't important in any way, unless you counted his newfound friendship with me, or perhaps the way Damphair had coarsely mentored him.

"For who?" asked Asha. Her voice was hushed again, but none of the demand had left it.

"You, of course," he replied. "You need some young blood in this crew, and Damphair has talked him up a storm. The captain can't be the only youth on a ship, that's no way to go about it. That's where the trouble is coming from."

"There are always old sea dogs," I cut in, feeling a compulsion to defend Asha. The brawl earlier hadn't been her fault, not at all. And maybe she'd have been able to stop it if I hadn't stuck my beak in. "Every ship will have some crew older than the captain."

Roggon nodded, reaching up to scratch his beard. A couple of wiry ginger hairs came loose. Absently, as if he didn't even notice, he reached up to his mouth, holding the hairs between thumb and forefinger, and bit down on them. I could see them in his mouth, one on his tongue and the other wedged between two teeth. Grim.

"True, that's true enough," he said. "But the old hands needs some young blood to take under their wing, to whip into shape. Hells, just someone to look down on and order about from time to time."

"So when the captain is the only young person on the crew," I said, beginning to understand his point. "The crew start thinking that the captain is their subordinate."

"You've got it," he agreed. "So I've been scouting some fresh blood for us. My surprise when one of them popped up on deck with an oilskin full of his mam's cheese and Damphair's old tablut board. You beat me to this one, cap'n." He tugged at his hair, where a forelock would have been if it wasn't tied tightly back.

"Not quite," said Baerag, a small smile dancing around his lips. "I'm happy that you were considering me, but I already have a crew. I'll sail under Percy's colours." He shifted on his seat. They were uncomfortable, but his discomfort didn't originate in his buttcheeks. "Sorry, Captain," he said, somewhat ruining his moment of discovering self-worth. Oh well. It was already on the list of things to work on. No change there.

"After all this I'm never setting foot on a ship with Lodos ever again," said Roggon, and then swore loudly. "The Black Wind is a fine vessel. Skilled crew, so the loot will be good. Captain Greyjoy at the helm has her ear to the ravens for prizes. No ugly wetwork, not most of the time. I know you haven't the stomach for it, and neither do I."

Baerag clasped his hands together, and looked earnestly into Roggon's eyes. The old ginger sailor actually sat back from the intensity of his expression, put his hands on his legs and peering down his nose at the eager young man.

"There are better prizes than gold, Rustbeard. I plan on paying the iron price for more than just trinkets."


	9. Chapter 9

Sunset wasn't far off. Asha and Roggon had been debating whether to pull in to shore to camp on dry land, or sleep in the ship for the night.

"The wind is steady and in our favour, the seas calm, and we'll hardly drift off course at all. Three trustworthy men to stand in for the helmsman while he sleeps, and we'll get an extra twelve hours of travel time."

Roggon snorted, pointing at the horizon with thick fingers.

"See that? That's a cozy berth on Reach soil. The first three days of this voyage, you made us sleep on the ship. Three days! The crew didn't like it, but it made sense to avoid setting up too deep in the Westerlands. Lannister soldiers travel in packs, more dogs than lions, and twice as spiteful on land to make up for their weakness at sea. Now, though? The Reachmen let us be if we let them be."

"We don't let them be," said Asha. "Of all the Seven Kingdoms, we reave the Reach the most, after Dorne, and neither of us has set foot on Dornish sand since Andrik the Unsmiling took Helwren Ironborn as his thrall."

"One woman," said Roggon dismissively.

"The greenlanders have a thousand times more fury for one stolen highborn woman than all the gold in their pockets," she said. I blinked, and moved over to join the conversation.

"Helwren is highborn?" I asked.

"Was, I suppose," Asha replied. "Salt wives aren't highborn. And now she's Ironborn." She shrugged, palms held out and lifted up with the motion as if it wasn't important. I went to say something more, but then paused. I had spent long enough trying to claim my heritage didn't define me, that I was an individual as well. If someone else wanted to do the same, so be it. Whatever their reasons.

"One or one hundred women, nobody will be looking for them on the beach," insisted Roggon. His beard shook in the air, the gold rings braided into it bouncing as he spoke. Asha placed a hand on his forearm, and squeezed it gently.

"You want to be off the ship with Percy as soon as possible," she acknowledged. "I know. But if we pull in now, you'll get a few hours on a beach with him instead. Is that so much different? If we keep sailing through the night, we could shave half a day off our trip. More, if the wind is good."

Roggon sighed, and lowered his head. He shook it, not in objection, but in defeat. I felt bad for the guy. He was being perfectly cordial to me, but I was creeping him out big time. Strange that he'd meet my eyes and tell me to my face that he found me terrifying, but that's the way the Ironborn were. They weren't particularly given to fawning or freezing when they could just square up to their fears and confront them head on.

"I can speed our passage," I volunteered. "I can speed it up by quite a lot, actually. There and back."

Roggon and Asha exchanged looks I couldn't decipher.

"Thank you," she said at last, and I knew instantly that she was going to say no by the hesitation in her voice. "But after today, I think the crew wouldn't do well with another day of sitting as passengers. Rowing will keep their heads clear and their hands busy."

"They can still row," I suggested. "It'll add to our speed. Nothing will have ever moved so fast as the Black Wind over all the ocean."

Asha gave me her characteristic wicked smile, lips hooking upwards and eyes gleaming. The grey of an Ironborn's eyes was often cold and hard, and she was no exception, but when that gleeful wickedness came upon her, Asha's eyes were as bright as cut glass.

"The fastest ship that ever was," she mused, pursing her lips. "That's a story worth being in. But no, not tonight. After everything today, the crew deserve a hot meal, not old hardtack and a half ration of grog. I think they need some time without the Drowned God chivvying them along."

Ah. There it was, then. I had been rather heavy-handed on this voyage. Perhaps she was right, and it was time to back off.

I could exit with grace, still. Recognise when my presence wasn't helping. See, I'm learning!

"A hot meal would be good," I agreed, taking a couple of steps back until I rested against the railing. I hopped up to sit on it, dangling my feet in the air. "I'll go start getting things ready for you. I'll have a look around to see if I can find anything worth eating." I tipped myself backwards, and slid neatly into the sea which hardly a splash.

Asha shouted in surprise, and rushed to the railing. At the sight of her head poking over the side, blurry and distorted through the water, I flipped myself over with an underwater somersault and swam back up.

"Don't you need to know where we're going to camp?" she asked.

I couldn't help it. It was an appropriate question, but it tickled me in just the right way. I laughed, and my laugh bounced over the water, distorted oddly and carried further by how close my mouth was to the surface. If I was lucky it just sounded weird to me, and wasn't unsettling the Ironborn any further.

"I already know!" I called back, and kicked off from the ship, propelling myself towards the smudge on the horizon which was the Reach.

"But we don't know where we'll camp yet," she said, more to Roggon than me. I couldn't make out his response. It was a gruff mumble swallowed up by the sound of the sea.

Of course I knew. What sort of sea god couldn't navigate his way to the end of a voyage? It was like seeing a join-the-dots picture one step away from being finished. Everything was there, you just needed to follow onwards and complete the circuit.

I promise this would make sense to Dad. It was as obvious for me as telling the difference between up and down, between hot and cold. I couldn't explain how, but I just knew. The world was split into two extremes; the place I was going, and everywhere I was not.

Time passed oddly beneath the ocean, but the sun was still up when I found the beach. Whatever internal compass had been guiding me spun to a close, and I found myself stuck without direction.

So it was here. I tried to make out the black square of the longship's sail against the horizon, but there was nothing in sight. I couldn't even guess how far distant the ship was. I hadn't cut straight east to the nearest part of the coast, I'd swum south. A temperate current had wafted in front of me, and unable to resist, I'd let myself be carried away by its warm and persistent flow.

This beach was straight out of a postcard. Broad swathes of white sand, gently sloping upwards until it met a row of trees. The forest spilled out on one side of the beach, where a rocky promontory rose to become a cliff, walling off the beach completely and covered in trees. The treeline dipped in and out with the undulations of the shore, partially enclosing this stretch of beach in an isolated horseshoe.

It was almost too good to be true, for pirates looking for a quiet spot. Nobody would be able to see a camp here, and the forest seemed thick enough to discourage anyone from coming to investigate the smoke from cookfires. I didn't want to be caught off-guard, so I strode into the woods to see how far they went.

There was bound to be something a hungry sailor would appreciate in here, too.

Earlier in our history, mankind often feared the forests. They were rumoured to be full of monsters, haunted by the spirits of the dead, and ill luck for anyone who ventured in alone.

These woods reminded me of those myths. They were dense and wild, with no sign of human intrusion. I half-expected to turn a corner and see a nymph step out of a tree, and brush past a hanging vine and hear the faint piping of panflutes in the distance.

All I could find in here was a weird tree. It was pale white, the colour of bones bleached and picked clean by scavengers, and its leaves were a vibrant red even though this was summer. A crude face was carved into it with distorted, inhuman features. It seemed to be screaming, though I couldn't tell whether from fear or hate, and a red sap oozed and crusted from its eyes and mouth.

The creepy tree in a bit of pristine ancient forest had a face. Okay. That could not be good. My first thought was that a nymph had gotten herself trapped, perhaps even injured.

Thanks to a rare moment of father and son bonding, I knew a trick for this situation. It wasn't one of my powers, not really, but something anyone could do if they knew the method and had sufficient strength to impose their will on reality. I didn't inherit it from Poseidon the god, I was taught it by my father.

I shouldn't whitewash it, though. It's not like he'd taken me out back to toss a ball around or learn how to bait a fish hook. No, this was much more up Dad's alley. More than even fishing.

Yeah, that's right. When I turned twenty-one he showed me the knack of luring nymphs out of their hiding places inside trees and springs and all the secret places of nature. It was a trick which he used more or less exclusively for one thing, and that's how my half-brother Tyson came into existence.

I pressed my hand against the tree trunk, just beneath the face, and pushed. Not just with my body, but with my spirit, adding metaphysical weight to the physical force. Did I imagine it, or did the eyes open a crack? The red sap began to flow more freely, the liquid trickling down from a corner of one eye like honey sliding down the outside of the jar.

A little more strength, a twist of will like turning a key, and I shoved the spirit out of the tree. I expected to see a nymph materialise from the air and either thank or harangue me, but no, nothing. The tree just stared out of its dead face, blood-red sap pooling on the bark.

That was odd. I frowned, and looked closer. The face didn't seem natural, not in the way a trapped spirit would when trying to call out for help from passers-by. It looked like it had been carved into the tree. How strange. Maybe a vandal had walked through these woods hundreds of years ago with a pocketknife. There was certainly no sign anyone had been here recently, and the stretch-marks around the edges of the carving suggested that the tree had grown a great deal since the face had been added.

I touched the tip of one finger to the sap, and, ignoring every piece of advice I'd ever been given about strange plants, tasted it.

It was as sweet and tar as winter berries. The taste filled my mouth, flooding it, and then broke down into a harsh sour aftertaste, bitter and metallic. Blood. The sweet red honey turned into blood in my mouth.

I swallowed on reflex, wishing I hadn't, and then I was underwater in yet another alien sea.

Every pore on my skin turned to ice. Even in polar seas, the water should have felt warm and pleasant to the touch, but this sea blistered me with frost in a heartbeat. My hands numbed, and jaw shook. I felt my tongue swell up, an ugly dead slug of a thing in my mouth, and my stomach felt full of the air from a hundred balloons.

Somewhere distant, a man was drowning off the coast of a frozen shore. I knew this in the way I knew all things within the sea. His last thoughts were of the Drowned God, and I felt his soul move past me, move through me in search of his final rest.

He was stopped at the door to a great underwater hall, a longhouse on a titanic scale, carved with mermaids and leviathans and all the other classic iconography of ocean myths. There was supposed to be a doorkeeper, I felt. Nobody came. The drowned man's soul hammered at the door, wailing plaintively, but it was stuck fast.

An enormous black shadow moved, out of sight, behind the man. He felt it as a chill in the memory of his spine, and racing of what used to be his heart, and he shouted aloud, pleading for help.

I reached out, grasping for him. The shadow spun, ten strong arms splaying outwards, pushing the kraken against the substance of the water. My hand closed around his soul, and the material of his person brushed against mine. I felt his vanities, his greed, his hunger and his hate. They were all the petty emotions of survival, barely more than an animal in either subtlety or passion. Weak, that other part of me said, from the distant watery hall. Unworthy, it said. I tried to fight back, drawing forth memories of the dead man's virtues. I conjured from him the long, slow patience of a harp being strung and restrung, plucked at until the wood sang truer than any bird. I remembered how he carved a wooden pin shaped like a badger for his son, and another for his daughter that looked like a bluejay.

Weak, insisted that phantom from another realm, thrusting the feeling of the man's cruel fists against those same children. Unworthy, it hissed, showing him cower in fear before another man, unwilling to fight a peer as he had a child.

I let go, flinching at the psychic blow. The kraken was there in an instant, and the soul was lost.

I shook, both of me, and then there was only one of me. I felt a strange, inhuman sensation, as if I had somehow passed through myself while passing through myself in an endless feedback loop of timelines converging, and then there was only one of me, standing in front of a hidden weirwood which openly wept.

I was overcome by melancholy, and collapsed on my hands and knees. I struggled to breathe with deep, ragged gasps, and I called out for Poseidon.

The leaves of the weirwood rustled, and the wind whistled through its branches. The wind sounded almost like Dad's voice calling my name, just on the edge of hearing.

I called out for Dad again, and again, but nobody answered me but the ghost of a voice in the wind. It wasn't my imagination, but it wasn't entirely real, either. It wasn't enough. I clenched my hands into fists, dragging my fingers in deep grooves through the mulch and pressing my nails into my palms until they hurt.

This was the same as it had been in that sudden vision of the Drowned God's watery hall. The structure was in place, but there was nobody there to answer.

My father was dead.

Alright, I needed to calm down. I pushed myself upright and staggered away from the tree. Its bleeding eyes had become cruel, and its mouth drooled bloody sap in a mockery of my sudden realisation.

A pang in my chest made me feel as though my heart wasn't beating. I felt hollow, as empty as the Drowned God's halls.

I hadn't expected this. Couldn't have expected this. But it made so much sense. This was why my powers were acting strange, my divinity lurking closer to the surface than it did back home.

The aspect of Poseidon local to Westeros was dead. Not my dad. Just one of the myriad facets of his power. Something still existed, a wayward shade like the forlorn ghost of sailors who drowned in foreign seas, but it was just a remnant of a remnant, cycling through old patterns like a ghost in the machine of faith.

It still hurt. I felt raw, exposed, alone in ways I hadn't done since going into my self-imposed exile. I longed for someone who might understand to speak to about this, but who in Westeros could understand this situation?

Crashing through the undergrowth as carelessly and clumsily as a bear, I made my way back to the beach. The light of the sun on my face helped. I threw myself into the surf, and let the currents carry me away into the deeps. It helped more.

Once I was deep enough that I could barely see the sun, I exhaled, long and hard. A stream of bubbles flew from my mouth. I let all the air out of my lungs, and held it there for a moment, pushing my power back so that no oxygen would diffuse through my skin or generate spontaneously in my lungs and heart and blood.

I let water fill my mouth, my nose. For almost the first time, I felt the beginnings of the sensation of drowning.

And then I scoffed. What bullshit was I playing at? I let my lungs inflate, and the sudden rush of oxygen cut through the fog of emotion.

Nothing had changed back home. Dad was still there, in health as good as ever. I could feel that as surely as I could feel his power flowing through me. Would I even survive if he had truly died? I wasn't certain.

I closed my eyes, and focused on the sea pressing all around me. Shapes flickered against my awareness in the black distance. I clicked my tongue, and a high chime resounded for miles in every direction, pinging back to me with new understanding of the local wildlife. I let my attention settle down to the power that lay within me, the drops of ichor melded within my mortal blood.

It sang with a vibrancy and intensity I had never seen before.

There was an empty space in this world shaped like Poseidon, and as water flows to match the shape of the vessel it's poured into, I was growing to fill this empty space.

Man, Zeus was going to be pissed.

Come to think of it, I hoped Dad would be chill about this. He's pretty easygoing for an Olympian, but still has the family temper. If he planned this, I was going to tear into him. I already turned down godhood once, and I've warned him not to try setting me up in his plots. If he didn't, I'd have maybe five seconds to get him to remember who I was before he decided to smite me as a traitor and a thief.

I rose through the water until I stood on the surface. Buoyancy was whatever I wanted it to be. I flexed, and ice formed under my feet, crackling and expanding outwards in an uneven disc. Now that I was paying attention to it, this was effortless. I had always been among the strongest children of Poseidon, but now there was no doubt. Suck it, Triton.

Some time later, I had managed to force myself to go back to the edge of the forest. I wasn't scared. I was just disturbed as all hell, and didn't want to meet that tree again. I was half tempted to cut it down for firewood, but the smoke would probably send the crew into a berserk rage or hours of hallucinations, knowing my luck.

I laid a hand on the trunk of the tree nearest the shore, and ripped all the moisture out of it. The wood desiccated and dried instantly, contracting more rapidly than the tree could bear. Sharp cracks resounded all up and down the trunk, hairline fractures forming and branches falling clear off. The leaves curled up and died, half of them drifting to the ground, torn loose by the suddenness of their motion.

Instantly seasoned wood. It was one of the many tricks I'd picked up while camping solo around the world. It made travelling a little easier and a lot more comfortable.

I kicked the dead tree, and gently shook the earth to loosen the soil around its shriveled roots. The tree fell free, collapsing on one side and rolling down the gentle slope to the beach. It rolled nearly all the way to the firepit I'd begun to dig. Perfect.

It felt almost sacrilegious to use a celestial bronze weapon as a woodaxe, but necessity is the mother of misused tools. I hacked the tree apart with a few blows, and arranged the wood to ensure it would burn well. I trimmed some green branches into stakes, and set them to one side while I finished my preparations.

By the time I saw the black and gold square of the Ironborn ship appear, I had skewers of fish and fowl from the woods roasting in the flames. It was simple, honest fare, but at least I had plenty of salt to season it with.

Baerag was the first ashore, running over the sand to greet me. Roggon shouted a half-hearted insult about lazy sailors shirking their duty, but didn't demand Baerag come back and help haul the ship onto the beach.

"How did you get here before us?" he asked. "Captain Greyjoy only just decided that this was a likely cove to pull in for the night."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh," he said, and gave me a rueful smile. I handed him a skewer of roasted woodpigeon in response. He took a guilty look back to where the rest of the crew were labouring at the task he'd abandoned, and then gave in to temptation and tore a chunk off. "Gods, it's good to eat something hot," he moaned. "I haven't eaten all day, since the rations were destroyed when you sank the ship. Not that I'm blaming you," he added hurriedly. "You were just trying to stop blood from being spilled, I understand!"

"No, I don't think you do," I said, holding back a laugh. I shouldn't laugh, not really. It was a little cruel. "I didn't soak the food rations. I deliberately kept them dry. Not a single thing under the decking or in any sea chests got soaked. Calming down a fight would do no good if I was just setting up another one the next time somebody got hungry."

Baerag frowned, and looked at me askance. He took a bite out of his meal, chewing it slowly and wearing a thoughtful expression.

"But they said…" he trailed off, and busied his mouth with the pigeon.

"They stole your lunch, Baerag," I said, and handed him another skewer, this one fish. "Here, you can make up for it now."

I did feel sorry for him, but in that moment he looked so downcast it made me want to laugh. I followed his example and hid my reaction by taking a bite of food. I didnt swallow it, just tore the thickest piece of meat free, the piece where the bird's skin had crackled and crisped against the surface in a delicious layer over meat marbled with juice and fat. I took that choice morsel out of my mouth, and tossed it into the fire.

"I offer this meal to Posiedon," I murmured. The flames flared turquoise where the meat lay, burning in the bright pastel hues of the sea at dawn. Once the chunk of woodpigeon had blackened and charred and fallen away into nothingness, the blue-green hue faded back into the usual orange of the cookfire.

Asha was squatting beside us as quickly as she could reasonably get away from the work with the ship. The crew were still unpacking everything under the loud-voiced coxswain's barked orders, but Asha alone didn't have to do what he said, and scurried over as quickly as she could.

She didn't wait for me to offer her something to eat, she just grabbed a skewer and tore into it ravenously. I wondered if someone had dared to steal their captain's lunch, as well. Probably not, but the thought made me laugh out loud.

My laugh interrupted her enjoyment of the meal, and she paused, pulling away from the meat and swallowing her mouthful.

"Yes, Percy?" she asked. I just shook my head in response.

"'I'm glad that my efforts are appreciated," I said, setting some more skewers up to cook. I'd prepared enough for everyone to have a reasonable portion, but I had a feeling that they were going to eat every scrap of meat they could get their hands on. Lucky there's a whole sea waiting nearby, and fish will leap into my hands, ready to be eaten, if I just ask them to.

Which is kind of messed up, come to think about it. But fish are simple creatures with brains the size of walnuts, so their ability to make good decisions is fairly limited. We had that in common.

"Mhm," replied Asha through a mouth of fish. She reached for another skewer, even though she was only halfway through her first.

I sighed. Yep, definitely going to need to go tell some innocent little fish that there was candy in the back of my van. Eating seafood had never really sat right with me since I'd learned that fish could talk. Even if they were as dumb as seaweed. I definitely couldn't ever eat a horse, not after meeting Blackjack. I pushed myself onto my feet, and dusted the sand off my legs.

No time like the present. I grabbed a handful of extra skewers I'd cut to size earlier, mindful of the appetites of sailing men, and began heading down to the water's edge.

"Asha," I said, pausing before I'd gone more than a couple of steps. "I've decided something. I think it might be best if I travelled separately to the Black Wind. I'll meet you when it's time for the raid to begin."

She wiped her fingers on her tunic, and her mouth on her sleeve.

"Right," she said, and then swallowed the rest of her mouthful. "I have charts of Dorne on the ship. Come with me, we'll pick a spot on the coast to meet up."

"That's not necessary," I said. "I can find you. I'll scout ahead for our mark, then come aboard the Black Wind once she's close."

"How do you plan on finding us? I admit, you got lucky in picking the right spot today, but you knew our heading and speed, and this cove stands out as a place to take shelter, so it wouldn't have been impossible to figure out."

I grinned, and rapped her on the head with one of the skewers. She gave me a look of outrage, but didn't retaliate.

"You're Ironborn. I'm Percy Jackson. How could I not know where you are?"


	10. Chapter 10

The pirate ship was a large galley, almost a rival in length to the Black Wind but larger in all other measurements. When the Black Wind was sharp and sleek, the galley was deep and broad, bearing three masts to our one and gaudy ornamentation carved around the timbers of the forecastle.

The golden paint was flaking and cracking, badly replaced in spots with smears of tar.

Trust pirates to do a poor job of maintaining their vessel.

Asha bellowed orders, gesturing wildly with her axe. The salt sea roared, and the Ironborn roared back.

I had begun to grow concerned for her authority over her crew as tensions flared and tempers rose. The raid on the village, the brawl on the longship, they had all made me worry that she'd lose control the moment that the prize was in sight. Not so.

Her handling of the Black Wind to get her into position and prepared for an assault was a thing of beauty. She shouted demands which were echoed by Roggon midships, and again by the coxswain in the stern. The oarsmen moved like fifty arms of a single beast, moving in sync with mechanical precision.

A ship like the Black Wind had a fraction of the weight of our target. This was our advantage. Our maneuverability was incredible by comparison to the sluggish bulk of the galley. Asha guided the ships until the Black Wind was poised down the length of the galley's bow, angled slightly to one side. The ships pulled closer.

I counted down under my breath, waiting for the perfect moment. Asha was only a moment off. It was close enough. Impressive timing for someone not born to Poseidon.

She called out an order, and the Ironborn retracted their oars. The Black Wind raced down the length of the galley, shearing the oars of the target vessel away like wheat under a scythe.

It was like the disaster of a few days before, but weaponised and directed at our enemy. An oar-rake. The oars of the galley struck the prow of the Black Wind, snapping and splintering into useless stubs.

The maneuverability of our enemy was crippled. Asha directed the Black Wind around, and we pulled alongside the galley, matching its pace.

Hooks struck the other ship, found purchase, sank into wood. Lines tautened, war cries deepened, and then it was time.

"Baerag, front and centre!" cried Asha. "First blood to the new blood!"

Baerag, normally such a gentle soul, was on the deck of the other ship before she had finished speaking. I leapt after him, eager to keep a close eye on my mortal friend, and the Ironborn followed.

They were ready for us.

Four men approached with the fearless scowls of men who knew how to fight with a rolling deck beneath their feet. One held a crossbow, the other three swords. Baerag staggered as his feet landed on the deck, but only for a moment before he gathered himself, turning that stumble into forwards momentum and burying his sword in the chest of the nearest man.

He wasn't wearing any armor. Whether due to the fear of drowning all sailors from outside the Iron Islands hold, or because he just couldn't own any, I couldn't tell. Didn't matter. He couldn't own anything now. Pirates zero, Baerag one. Make that score one for Team Percy.

"I dedicate this battle to Perseus Lodos!" howled Baerag.

Oh, shit.

I'd like to say my vision went red. I'd like to say that I lost control, ensnared by the battle fury which comes over demigods in times of turmoil. But that would be a lie.

Glee began to ebb inside me. It felt like I was at the top of a rollercoaster, heart in my mouth and wind in my hair, looking down at the vast drop I was about to hurl towards. It built within me, a rising pressure as Baerag pulled his sword free from its grisly sheath. I couldn't help myself any longer. I threw myself forwards, into the fray.

"What is dead may never die!" I shouted, almost bisecting a pirate in a sweeping blow, hip to shoulder torn apart with three feet of celestial bronze. "But you sure can!"

Somewhere behind me, I heard other men scream "Lodos!" and the boots of the boarding party were thunder on the deck. I felt wild, suddenly, more like one of my monstrous half-brothers than a man. I wanted to feel flesh tear under my sword, taste the salt of blood in my mouth.

The man holding the crossbow stepped back hurriedly, loosing a bolt. I slapped it out of the air with the flat of my blade.

I laughed without meaning to, and ran ahead of the rest of the crew. My skin itched furiously, like insects writhing beneath the surface, but the sensation made me squirm and laugh. I felt like an alien in my own body, just for a moment, and then I fell into the familiar hum of battle.

TIme always moved oddly when I was fighting. It slowed down then accelerated, drawing out into long breathless moments and then snapping into position when my blade found its resting place between a pirate's ribs.

The pirates didn't seem to be local boys, judging by their nut-brown skin and the foreign sounds of their fearful shouts. They held weapons which looked every bit as cruel as the ones in the hands of the Ironborn, but could barely lift them in defence before they were overwhelmed. It wasn't a statement of their skill at arms so much as our sheer numbers. Almost the entire crew, nearly fifty strong, had joined the boarding party. Everything was being gambled on a single attack.

It was working. The pirates were spread out around the ship, and although they moved to join their fellows as quickly as they could, the ship was too large and the distance too great to cross before we swarmed them.

Ten pirates are no match for fifty Ironborn. Even the ones who were able to dodge a blow and raise a sword to block a second stood no chance, for there were three more blades coming crashing down on each of them.

The Ironborn swarmed over the deck of the galley like locusts devouring a fruit tree.

I stood and watched, an island of stillness at the eye of the storm. The two crews rushed around me, blood spattering the deck and each other. A spray of gore from someone nearby stuck me in the face, and my skin burned at the touch. I could almost feel the blood sizzle and hiss away into steam.

I raised two fingers to touch my cheek. They came away sticky and red, but cool. As I watched, the blood glistened and shone and sank into the whorls of my fingerprints.

Baerag rushed up beside me, shoving the pirate away from me with his shoulder and hacking off his fingers with a blow to the hand. His foe screamed, and then I silenced him with a thrust of Anaklusmos through his throat.

"Lodos," he chanted, eyes lit with a feverish gleam. My head rang at the sound, as it had days ago in the great hall of Pyke when Berryn had blocked my sword with a prayer. He struck against another enemy, and the ringing rose to a fierce crescendo.

I screamed, and Baerag screamed with me.

We rushed the final group of pirates together. One brave soul charged out to meet us, facing his death with all the pride he could muster. He ran at us, knife striking out to my gut. I swung Anaklusmos in a wide arc, blocking off his path and stepping forwards to follow through with a fatal thrust to his chest.

Baerag dodged out of the way of the pirate's knife, stepping between me and the knife and directly into the path of my sword. He didn't try stabbing or slicing, just shoved his body against the pirate to force him away from me.

Anaklusmos bit into mortal flesh. The man screamed, and I felt like doing the same. I yanked back on my sword, hard, but it was too late. Demigod reflexes let me see what was happening, but they didn't do a damn thing to help me stop it. You can't unswing a sword.

Bronze cut through the pirate's abdomen, through the skin and muscle fiber and then out through the other side to where Baerag stood pressed against the other man in an attempt to shove him off-balance. Anaklusmos passed through the air, and into Baerag.

My sword passed through him like liquid smoke, bronzed surface shimmering like sunset on the scales of a fish. He visibly flinched, and I drew in a deep, sharp breath. We locked eyes, and between us the pirate wailed, forgotten.

He reached down to touch his stomach where the immaterial blade entered, and then reached over to touch the wound where it exited the body of the pirate crushed between us. His fingers passed through the bronze. The surface of the sword rippled as he moved his hand through it. He swore quietly, under his breath. I felt it in my bones, because he was using my name as profanity. That was almost a compliment, come to think of it. Still, I was going to have to start thinking about royalty fees for blasphemers if this caught on.

I pushed the dying pirate unceremoniously to the ground. He crumpled at my feet. Baerag tried to close his hand around Anaklusmos, but his fingers found no purchase and just curled into a fist inside the celestial weapon.

"Do you mind?" I said, feigning an affronted air. "That's my sword you're fondling."

-x-x-x-

It didn't take long for the ship to be subdued. The eagerness of the Ironborn was commendable. Their mercy, less so. Of a crew of thirty, none survived. I wasn't particularly heartbroken over the deaths. I had spent my life killing monsters, and pirates weren't too different to the bad kind of cyclopes when the chips were down. Sure, they wouldn't regenerate in Tartarus and come back to life in a few years, but that's mortality for you. These men had spent their lives killing and stealing for profit, so it only made sense that they'd be murdered by someone sooner or later.

Were we any better, though? Was pirating the pirates any nobler than raiding a village of impoverished smallfolk? I hoped so, but suspected I was lying to myself. This was vigilante justice at its grimiest. Batman at sea, but worse. Did we need costumes?

I considered it for a moment.

No, we were a crew of old-timey pirates on a not-Viking longship led by a Greek demigod. We were already at capacity for renaissance fair bullshit.

"That's the last of 'em," declared Roggon Rustbeard proudly. He hefted an axe smeared with foul liquids onto his shoulders, and I cringed at the sight of viscera matting his hair. I guess his hair was already red.

"Unless there are any more hiding belowdecks," said Baerag. The men around laughed at his words, and he looked around at them, bewildered. "What?" he asked.

"There's always one," said Asha. "One cowardly little rat hiding out under sailcloth or inside a barrel, shitting himself and hoping we don't find him. Sometimes there are two. That makes it quicker, because the backstabbing little cunts always end up fighting over the best hiding spot and letting us know where they are."

"What about the rowers?" I asked. "I only saw a few come running up when the fighting started. Not even enough to pull the oars on the side we didn't rake."

Asha spat on the deck, and ground the spittle into the planks with the toe of her boot in an expression of particular disgust. Her face was scrunched up as if she'd bitten into something particularly sour.

"This ship is sailing Lyseni colours," she said, as if that explained everything.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" I asked. "Come on, you know I'm not from around here." Ash cocked her head curiously.

"You're not from Essos, then?" she asked.

"He came from the sea!" interjected Baerag eagerly. Some of the crew laughed, but Roggon gave him a wary look.

"Right," said Asha in a drawl, sounding unconvinced despite everything she'd seen from me so far. I guess everyone has to come from somewhere, no matter what magic tricks they can do. It made sense that she'd try to pin me down on to having come from somewhere in this world. "Lys is the Perfumed Sister of the Free Cities of Essos. A city of merchants and whores, grown fat on the wealth of slaves. Just about any ship who calls Lys her home port is going to have a belly full of slaves."

"Useless at an oar," grumbled Roggon. "Fear of a lash doesn't get a man's blood going like glory and honour can."

The Ironborn around us called out in agreement, some banging weapons together in crude applause.

Anaklusmos was in my hand before I knew it.

"Then let's break some chains!" I said.

I was the first down into the ship. My sight flickered for a moment, adjusting to the gloom with preternatural quickness. Colours looked odd and murky, tinged with blues and greys almost as if things were underwater. It was weird, but I could see well enough. Baerag stumbled down the steps after me. I reached out a hand to steady him, and he grasped my shoulder to arrest his fall.

The aquatic murk of the darkness began to fade into something more closely resembling normal sight as my eyes adjusted properly. Dark corners were still smudged blue and green and grey, marking the outlines of shapes more clearly than I should have been able to see. Well, that was useful. Would have come in handy if this ability had shown its face when I was raiding the underworld. All one hundred and eight times that had happened.

A sailor whose name I didn't know rushed into the ship behind Baerag. He scouted around the room blindly, turning his face this way and that greedily. I wondered if he was looking for treasure, but then saw that he was examining the slaves chained to their benches, not looking around for the cargo. A sick feeling rose in my throat, as if I'd swallowed a rock and it was coming back up. I could taste the bitterness of bile.

No. I wasn't going to stand for this. Not now, not ever. I grabbed the sailor by the shoulder, and turned him gently to face the slave nearest me.

One blow from Anaklusmos shattered the rusty manacles holding the man in place. He was lean and ropy, as well-muscled as a man can be when under heavy labour but poorly fed. I moved the sailor's hand to place it on the slave's shoulder, and squeezed my hand over it. The gesture could have been a friendly affectation, or it could have been a threat, depending what the sailor's opinion of me was. Either one would serve my purpose here.

"Take him on deck," I ordered. "Take him to the stern, and wait there. We'll bring the others out soon. Keep your axe away. There's been enough killing today."

He groused, but then nodded.

"Dead thrall's no good to anyone," he grunted.

I backhanded the Ironborn sailor across the face, so hard that he fell against the bulkhead and cracked his head on the wood. He cursed, and reached for the haft of his axe.

My hand was already around his throat. I didn't squeeze, I just lifted him off the ground, holding him up but making sure to allow him to breathe. He kicked feebly, like a child.

"Nobody is taking slaves today," I hissed, and let him go. He dropped to the ground, wheezing. "Take this man outside for some fresh air, and do him no harm unless you want it revisited on yourself three times over."

I stepped over to the next slave, turning my back on the sailor in a dismissive gesture and breaking open the next set of manacles. There was a loud thump as something happened behind me. I turned to see Baerag shaking his fist and rubbing at his knuckles. He grinned at me ruefully, but didn't say what had happened even under the powerful scrutiny of my eyebrow being raised a fraction.

I turned to hide my smile as much as to get the attention of the next person to join us in the dingy hold.

"You," I barked, and the new sailor trotted up obediently. That was a good start. Let's keep up with the mute compliance until this is done, shall we? "Take this one," I said, gesturing with Anaklusmos at the second slave.

This scene repeated itself a few times until the crew began to pick up on it, and then things smoothed over a bit. I would smash decaying iron apart with my sword, Baerag would direct the next man to come forwards, and a slave would be brought out into the free air.

I counted two dozen slaves, twelve from each side, before all the chains lay broken on the floor. I stared around the empty benches. There were many more sitting unused. I expected the pirates themselves would be able to seat themselves at one of the benches and help out when a bit of extra muscle was needed. It was still barely enough for a ship of this size, but being understaffed fit with the theme of poor upkeep and despair that these pirates were going for. One of the old Greek triremes could seat a crew of two hundred at three layers of oars. This was a single layer, and a smaller one at that.

Funny how this, of all things, was what made me homesick. I had hardly set foot on a trireme more than a few times back home, yet the thought made me overcome with nostalgia. I pushed it away. I had promised myself that I wasn't going to think of home, of what I was leaving behind.

There was a reason I had forced myself to leave, and I didn't want to think of her. A few years apart was nothing compared to an eternity together on Olympus, but I was only a quarter of a century into my life, for Dad's sake. A couple of years would be a tenth of my life.

Don't go there, Percy, I warned myself. You promised you wouldn't interfere. You promised you wouldn't even think about it.

I exhaled a long, deep breath, and was suddenly glad that it was too dark in here for anyone to make out my expression.

Coming to Westeros was a good thing, I reasoned. It put me out of temptation's reach. And the further away I was, the better, at least until everything was sorted on her end. Was Dad actually trying to help by sending me here? Nah, it couldn't be that. My romantic life was the one and only thing he'd never truly been supportive of, unless you counted the parts where he encouraged me to chase after nymphs. Personally, I called that an attempt at sabotage more than healthy father-son bonding.

"Percy?" asked Baerag hesitantly. "Are you alright?"

Damn. It wasn't dark enough.

I turned to look him in the eyes, and deflected the question.

"Are you?" I asked, seriously. "Look around, at all of this. Men shackled to oars, beaten and starved and forced to work themselves to death in a black pit. Can you look at this and tell me that anything about it is alright?"

Baerag went quiet, and all I could hear was the stomping of Ironborn above-decks and the water sloshing against the hull.

"My father worked himself to death in a different kind of black pit," he said. "It was the blacklung that got him first, but then a rockfall finished it off. It was mercy, by the end. He was hacking up his lungs a hundred times a day, choking out that awful thick black pitch which doesn't belong in a man's body. FitzHoare didn't even want him going to the mines, said that a thrall as old as that belonged in a chair watching the goats, but Father insisted on going." He looked up at me, and his face shone moon-bright against the shadows inside the ship. "I think he went down that pit to die."

"Why would he do that?" I asked. "Because he was suffering so much from sickness?"

Baerag shook his head.

"So he could die on his own terms. His life belonged to someone else, but his death belonged to him alone."

It was a pity that it took losing a loved one to a horrible death to make someone realise that slavery is bad. I grimaced. That was an uncharitable thought. Baerag was a product of his environment, as were they all. I expect most of the Ironborn weren't even really awful people, they'd just been indoctrinated by the local culture to think that it's normal to do terrible things. It wasn't their fault. But it was my responsibility to fix.

"Any more?" called Asha down from the entranceway. I looked up, shading my eyes from the bright rectangle of the door.

"We're all done for thralls," shouted Baerag back at her. "Just the cargo left to grab!"

Asha hooted in glee, and leapt down the steps into the belly of the ship. Roggon and a number of others followed, making their way past us and into the cargo hold itself.

"Didn't you hear me say we're not taking slaves?" I asked, gritting my teeth. I'd hit the other sailor for making the same assumption, but Baerag was my friend and a kind person, so I stayed my hand. He didn't need to be broken of cruelty like a dog being rapped on the nose with a newspaper. I just needed to understand what the hell he was thinking.

He looked at me quizzically.

"Percy, thralls aren't slaves," he said patiently.

I wasn't in the mood to have this argument here, so I broke away and made my way back into the sunlight. Perhaps Baerag was more entitled to an opinion about thralls than I was, since he'd been born to a couple of them, but this was something I felt strongly about. Maybe that was my American side overruling the Greek part, for once.

"Every man aboard this ship is free!" I declared, striding across the deck to where more than twenty men stood blinking and confused, huddled together for fear of the reavers surrounding them. "There are no galley-slaves and Ironborn, just free sailors riding the waves. If any man objects to this, let him come forward now."

"What about my prize," complained a reaver whose axe was smeared with red. "I came raiding to get a salt-wife to bear me sons! My Nessa only squirts out daughters."

I snorted, and raised an arm, gesturing to the clump of scrawny, terrified men who had been chained belowdecks.

"Exactly which of these men do you expect is going to give you a son?" I asked, eyes narrowed and voice mocking. The sailors around him hooted and jeered.

"You misunderstand, Percy," called Asha, voice bright with the promise of laughter. "Terrick is going to bend over and let these Lyseni whores pump a son into his arse!"

Terrick growled, and slapped away the hands that were shoving him playfully. He spat on the deck, and pointed at me. What a rude gesture. I couldn't help but notice how fat and stubby his fingers were. The rest of him was the muscular build of an oarsman, but he had the hands of a trailer-trash housewife, bloated from TV dinners and twinkies. Around here the equivalent would be, uh, I guess just tuna and turnips. Delicious.

At least he was pointing with fingers and not a weapon, or else I'd have to disarm him. And commit police brutality while he resisted arrest.

"I'm owed a share," he growled. "We all are."

"You'll get a share of the plunder," I promised. "But human lives are not gold to be taken and traded."

"I paid the iron price for a thrall!"

"You paid the iron price for gold and glory," I countered. "Human lives are not for sale, not for any price."

Asha snorted.

"You sound like my grandfather." I turned my head slightly, wondering what on Earth she could mean by that. If I tried to imagine her grandfather, I just imagined Balon Greyjoy, but with more grey and less joy. If that was possible.

"Quellon the Just outlawed the keeping of thralls," explained Baerag. "The Greyjoy and Damphair's father, that is. I was too young, so I can hardly remember it. After he died, Balon overturned all Quellon's reforms and tried to turn the islands back to the Old Ways."

"Sounds like a stand-up guy," I mused. Baerag nodded along.

"He outlawed reaving, except against Essosi merchants and pirates, not that there's a difference between the two. Brought maesters over to fill the castle towers with ravens, and tried to build closer ties to the greenlander lords with marriages."

"And Balon overturned all of that?" I exclaimed, horrified. What a bastard. I knew he was an unpleasant son of a bitch, but I had assumed he was just maintaining the status quo. "Why would he do that?"

Baerag shrugged, but it was Asha who answered.

"The reforms grated on Father," she said. "Like a harness chafing a horse with a heavy load. He threw it off as soon as he was able. He believes that the ironmen should be strong to honour the Drowned God, as cold and hard and cruel as the sea itself."

"This does not honour me," I growled, without realising what I was saying. I paused, shook myself internally, and tried again. "This doesn't honour Dad. He can be intense sometimes. The sea is powerful and terrible, and he's exactly the same. But he's never respected anyone for play-acting a shitty caricature of him. He respects men who are strong enough to choose who they are for themselves."

"Like you?" spat out Terrick. I shrugged, this time.

"The proudest Dad ever was of me was when I told Zeus to fuck off in his own house."

"Zeus?" asked Baerag. Oh, right. Westerosi names. Damn. I didn't even know if Zeus lived around here. I hoped not, he was kind of a pain to deal with. Well, if Dad is the Drowned God, that would mean…

"The Storm God," I clarified. "Not in so many words, but pretty much. I stood right there in his throne room and told him to do one. More than once, actually. It's only a matter of time before a bolt of lightning comes hurling down at me out of a clear sky."

"You stood in the Storm God's throne room and told him to fuck off?" asked Terrick. He lowered his finger, his expression, well, not softening exactly so much as the anger was replaced by curiosity.

"In a manner of speaking," I said with a shrug. "Clouds floating all around, gods elbow to elbow like it was a mall on Black Friday, and I can't help myself. Just had to mouth off at the grumpy old guy."

I turned back to the slaves, who were watching the exchange in confusion. I wondered how many of them understood what we were saying. Even if they knew the language, this was probably random superstitious gibberish to them. Lucky me, falling in with the Ironborn. With all the superstitious irreverence of sailors, they were willing to believe in the bullshit that was my life without being particularly awed by it. May as well boast about winning an arm wrestle with Andrik the Unsmiling as say you gave the king of the gods an earful in front of an audience.

"So, if there are no more objections, gentlemen," I said, opening my arms wide in a gesture to encompass the freed slaves. "You are now free to go."

One of the galley slaves, a man with a wiry frame and long dirty blonde hair, took a hesitant half-step forwards.

"Please, no," he said, in a heavy accent.

What.

"We are still good for work," he said, his tone pleading. "All strong from working oars. Can work hard. Ironborn farm, Ironborn mine, yes? We do not sow? We can sow for you."

"You're free to go," I repeated, unsure if he'd heard me right. Was he begging for his life, thinking that we were intending to kill them all? It wasn't an unreasonable thing to think, given the macabre setting - nobody had so much as hurled a corpse overboard, so they were just lying there amongst our feet. "We're not going to hurt you. I can take you to land. Back to the Stepstones where these asshole were raiding," I suggested. "Or maybe to the mainland, to Dorne or the Reach?"

"We have nowhere to go," the freedman said. "No homes to return to. No families, no work. Most, no Common Tongue. Westeros lords will kill us as vagrants, not welcome beggars into their towns."

I grimaced. He had a point. I hadn't considered where they would actually go once I'd set them free. Without food or shelter or any source of livelihood, just dumping them on a stretch of coast may well be signing their death warrants as surely as if I'd killed them myself.

"We can work," he urged. "Work for food, for place to sleep?" Some of the others nodded along. One translated in a mumbled speech of harsh throaty sounds, a language which seemed more consonants and barks than anything else. He was taller than the rest, built somewhat like a warrior, though malnourishment made it hard to tell. I could see the scars from bladed weapons on his arms and chest, pink-white lines on coppery skin. His hair was dark, but cropped close, and his beard was braided in a manner similar to Roggon's, albeit without the bells.

"Jhakho, you agree?" the first man asked. The warrior turned slave stared at him fiercely before moving to address me directly.

"I was a bloodrider to Khal Bharbo," he said slowly, sullenly. "I will die before I work servant labour again."

He shifted slightly, causing what remained of his muscles to bulge. Terrick flinched back, hand scrabbling for his weapon, and Jhakho barked in response. It wasn't really a laugh. Barely even an attempt.

"But I do not wish to die," he added reluctantly. "Put a weapon in my fist and I can ride for the khal who set me free."


	11. Chapter 11

It felt as though I had been falling forever, like I had thrown myself back into the black pit of Tartarus. I reached out, expecting to feel the warmth of Annabeth's hand beneath my fingers, but they closed on empty air. Her absence was a knife in my heart.

I'd made a promise to her, a promise that I'd stay away until she had succeeded in her task - or tried and failed on her own merit. It had been a year since we had last seen one another, and the first few months had been agony. I'd grown better, slowly, at keeping my thoughts away from her. Away from anyone back home. It was hard, but came with practice and determination.

All of that meant nothing now. The only thing I wanted was to rise out of this endless fall, fly up out of the pit and go back to her. But despite all my power, one thing I couldn't do was fly.

"But what if you could?" asked the darkness, and black emerged from black, empty void resolving itself into the feathers of a crow. It blinked, and the darkness opened into three eyes.

Alright, that was weird. I can handle weird much better than bleak loneliness, so as soon as I heard the crow speak, I began to relax. It says a lot about my life that I started wracking my brains for half-remembered bits of history lessons instead of questioning why a bird was able to talk. Why shouldn't a bird talk? Fish can. Horses can. Even mortals can, and my dear old grandfather considered them about as intelligent as moss.

According to some myths, I recalled, crows were originally white, until one fateful day when a crow pissed off a god. Or if I choose to tell the whole story, the crow was just in the wrong place when a god happened to be annoyed. Yeah, that sounds like the Olympians alright. The story goes that Corone, a mistress of Apollo, fell in love with the mortal Ischys and spurned the god to marry him. A crow brought word of this secret marriage to Apollo, and he was so enraged that he burned the crow's wings black to match the black news it brought.

"So what horrible news have you come to bring me?" I asked the bird.

"News of falling," it said. "News of flying. You could fly out of this pit, if you wanted to. All of have to do is try. First try, then fly, then you need never die."

Every time it said a word that rhymed with fly, the bird squawked. It was pretty annoying, but I schooled a polite expression onto my face. It wasn't a good idea to insult random magical creatures. I'd learned that lesson more than once.

"I can't fly," I responded. "Not without a pegasus, anyway."

The crow tilted its head to one side, looking at me out of one eye. The third eye, nestled between the other two, stared blankly into the distance.

"What is a pegasus?" it asked.

"A horse with wings," I said. The crow opened its wings to ruffle its feathers, and then ducked a head beneath to peck at its side. After a few seconds, it turned its gaze back onto me and squawked hoarsely.

"Horses don't have wings," it said scornfully. "Horses can't fly. But you could."

"Yeah, right," I scoffed. "And get struck by lightning for my troubles. No thank you. I'm happy with the land and the sea, I don't need to go messing around in the sky as well."

The crow flapped its wings in annoyance.

"Stubborn boy," it complained. "You just don't understand. Once you've flown once, you'll appreciate what I'm offering." It folded its wings, closed its toes as if wrapping them around an invisible branch, and then dove off into the abyss.

I fell after it, and then my descent began to level out. I moved forwards as well as down, and the darkness gave way to light. I flew over a field of thousands of spears of ice rising up from a rocky, barren land. I saw a great shimmering wall reaching to touch the sky, spanning from the coast in the east to the mountains in the west. It looked as though it was made of the same ice as the spears, and was so large that it seemed impossible, even to me, who had stood on Olympus in the palaces of the gods.

The land sprawling out in front of me must have been Westeros. I could tell by the way I didn't recognise a single thing. I looked around to see if I could spot the Iron Islands in the distance, but even at this height they were too far too see.

I passed over the land, the crow gliding beside me.

"Do you see?" it asked. "Do you see?"

I saw, alright. I saw the black storm clouds gathering around me, growing ever closer. There was a rumble of thunder, and I flinched away from the lightning bolt I knew was coming my way for daring to trespass in the realm of Zeus.

My limbs weren't responding. I tried to pull away, harder and harder, but nothing happened. With a great force of will, I managed to turn my head and saw white wings instead of arms. Thunder sounded again, and I desperately tried to pull myself away.

I was trapped as a passenger in a body which was not my own. I felt the hot stink of the minotaur's breath as it pressed down on me, and the crushing force of Kronos' presence. I had fought monsters and titans despite my fear, but in all my battles I had been able to fight. I couldn't fight this. I was helpless. A butterfly pinned to a corkboard.

With all my strength, I fought against the parasitic touch of the three-eyed crow riding in the back of my mind. It was too powerful. I couldn't dislodge it, couldn't even shift its touch a fraction. I dug deeper, into the heart of my power. Since I couldn't push the crow away, I tried something else. I pushed myself away.

Westeros disappeared.

Skyscrapers surrounded me. The familiar blare of horns filled the air, and the hot stink of car exhaust and humanity hit me all at once. After the fresh air of the Westerosi sky, the sudden change burned my nostrils, but I breathed it in deeply anyway, relishing the feeling of home.

I saw taxicab drivers locked in traffic, advertisements on billboards the size of giants, and hot dog vendors pushing carts along the streets.

Manhattan. I didn't think I'd see this place again for years.

I saw Mom on the sidewalk, and my heart caught in my chest. Her hair was greyer than I remembered, but the wrinkles on her face came from the kindness of her smile, not from age. She was standing at an ice cream stall with my mortal half-sister Estelle. The ice cream in her hands was bright blue, and I fondly remembered how she used to always make me blue coloured food whenever I was upset.

These wings still wouldn't move at my command. I tried to wrestle them into obedience, tried to force myself down to the ground, to the family I hadn't seen in far too long, but nothing happened. I cried out, and my voice was that of a gull. Mom looked up, and then thunder rumbled.

Storm clouds again, centered around the Empire State Building and moving towards me fast. I tried to repeat the peculiar twist of willpower and desperation which had brought me here, and my vision flared white with spots dancing in front of my eyes.

I saw Olympus. Annabeth knelt at the foot of her mother's throne, carving a marble statue of herself thirty feet high. Dad sat in his usual throne on the other side of the hall with my sword laid across his knees, but I could also see a second Poseidon sitting on the central throne, on Zeus' throne, green eyes flashing and trident in hand.

Mr D swung a huge wooden mallet, and struck the side of a cask as large as he was. Ruby-rich wine poured out, flooding the vast hall which housed the thrones of the Olympians.

Zoë Nightshade ran through the garden of the Hesperides, chased by a three-headed serpent. Each head was a different colour, and the largest head was coloured black and red and spat black fire.

And then I was somewhere else that I knew. I recognised the scattered towers of Pyke Keep, the proud longships arrayed in the harbour with krakens and other imagery on their sails.

"Found you!" said the crow, and I saw that it was once more flying beside me. It pecked at me, and I tried to peck back, but my body still wasn't responding.

"Why can't I move?" I demanded. "Why are you doing this to me? Let me go!"

"You can't escape me," it replied. "I can find you anywhere in this world. Listen. Look. Do you enjoy flying?"

I squirmed inside my skin, my heart beating faster in my chest. I was breathing too quickly, and felt more trapped than I had when caught in the underworld itself. The body I was in was perfectly calm, but I was panicking. The dissonance between my panicking mind and my oblivious, paralysed bird-body was only making it worse.

"This is a gift," the crow said. "Why won't you accept it? Stop resisting me and fly."

Right on cue, the clouds began to gather again. Fine, then. It was a bit of a risky move, but when have I ever been the one to make a cautious play? I didn't try to pull away from the storm this time. Instead I opened my big fat beak and called Zeus every rude name I could think of.

There was a flash, and then my world was on fire. Searing pain shot through me, and in the corner of my vision I saw feathers blacken into char and fall away. I fell, too, but so did the crow. It had been flying so close to me that it was caught in the blast of lightning, and even through the pain I managed to feel a rush of glee at my victory.

It hurt like hell, but the crow was gone.

I hit the sea with a splash, and sank beneath the waves. The water was cold, the salt stinging my burned body. It was harsh and unpleasant, and for a moment I forgot that I was a son of Poseidon.

And then I guess the bird must have died because I woke up.

I sat upright, slapping my arms and chest to wake some life back into them. My whole body was numb and tingling, but it was mine again and not some stupid bird's.

The wool was itchy inside the stitched hide which the Ironborn used as sleeping bags. I pushed it down to free myself, and climbed awkwardly out. The sun was just beginning to show up, and most of the camp was asleep. The Black Wind and the Antelope, the galley we had taken as a prize from the pirates, were moored nearby.

We didn't have enough tents or sleeping bags for everyone, so most of the freed slaves were sleeping in a huddled mass by the fire. It had burned down to embers, and they looked cold despite the warm weather.

One of them in particular was sat up, hugging his knees and staring into the embers. He was one of the older ones, his skin the unhealthy tone of someone who was naturally tanned a deep brown but faded from years held away from the sun. I tapped him on the shoulder, and gestured towards the tent I had just vacated.

I didn't know where he was from, but all men speak the common language of point and grunt. He clasped my wrist and smiled in thanks, and made his way into the scratchy woollen bag. Better him than me.

It took longer than usual for the camp to rouse itself. Everyone was tired from the excitement of fighting the previous day, and Asha decided to let the men sleep in as a reward for their labours. Once they were up, the normally efficient work of packing things away was complicated by the presence of all the freed slaves milling around.

I sat the whole thing out, supervising from a vantage point up on the captured ship.

As the other member of management, Asha joined me in my supervisory duties before too long.

"I'm going to take the Antelope back to Pyke," I said before she had a chance to speak. "I can push the ship along so the men we freed can have some rest. And I don't like my chances of trying to convince them to get back behind an oar, even now that they're free."

Asha grunted, and pulled out her dirk. She sat on the railing beside me, drumming her heels against the wood, and began to trim her nails.

"I was wondering what to do about them," she replied.

"Me too," I said. "I feel like I'm responsible for them now. Their lives have been overturned because of what I did, so I owe it to them to make sure they get out of this alright."

Asha gave me a sideways look and snorted.

"You rescued them from slavers. You don't owe them shit. It's the other way around."

"You can't just break some chains and move on," I argued. "Half-assing it like that would just end with half of them dead. I have to follow through."

"Whatever," she said. Some time passed, and then she sighed and put the knife away. "I'd a notion to split them up. Half on The Black Wind, half on the Antelope. Same with the crew. That way we'd have enough men to keep them in line, and with everyone rowing we'd get home sooner."

"Breaking heads if they didn't want to pull their weight?" I asked.

She shrugged.

"No less than I'd do to one of my sailors refusing to work."

"I want to give them time away from an oar," I said. "Let them think things over. Decide what they want to do. I know they want to come along with us, but that's just because they didn't have any other options. Maybe they'd choose differently if they really believed that they're not slaves anymore."

"A useless slave doesn't get kept around for long," mused Asha. "They want to be useful to you so you don't dispose of them."

"I'm not like that!" I protested, horrified. Yeah, okay, I'd slaughtered my share of the pirates the other day, but there was no doubt that they had killed innocents and would hurt more people if I'd let them go. Every mortal was helpless against me, but there's a difference between squashing a poisonous spider and bashing a puppy's head in because you don't fancy spending money buying kibble.

"No," agreed Asha. "You're weird. Not what I'd have expected of the Drowned God's get at all."

"Thank you, I think?"

"It's barely a compliment," said Asha dismissively, waving her hand.

"After what I've heard your dad does in my dad's name, I'll take it as one," I replied. She turned her head fully now, making eye contact without a trace of humour in her expression.

"This is going to mean trouble with him," she said. "I hope you understand that. He spent his entire life undoing Grandfather's reforms, trying to return the Ironborn to the Old Ways. Not everyone likes doing things his way, but he's pushed it hard, and there are plenty willing to go along with it. This is the closest the Ironborn have been to really following the Old Ways since Aegon the Conqueror."

"I don't know who that is," I reminded her, and sighed. "There's too much I don't know. What am I even getting myself into here?"

"Why do you even bother?" Her voice was dismissive, as if she couldn't care less. I thought it was just a rhetorical question at first, but then she punched me in the arm lightly. Her gaze was just as intense as ever.

"Well?" she insisted.

I mulled it over in my mind. Why was I doing this? It was the right thing to do, sure, but there must be more to it than that. The Ironborn were clearly a brutal people whose morality barely aligned with my own. Why didn't I just steal a boat and wander off to see if the greenlanders were any more palatable?

Because we were all children of Poseidon. I had a difficult time seeing what monsters there were in my family tree. When I was a kid I had been horrified by my half-brother the giant Anteus, who showed me his shrine of skulls and claimed to be Poseidon's favourite son. It bothered me so much, I actually reached out to Dad.

He told me that the things which people do in the name of the gods says more about them than it does about what the gods really want themselves.

Even so, I shared a father with far too many evil creatures. Some part of me, deep down, was terrified that I had the potential for that darkness too. If I could prevent these mortal cousins of mine from being monsters, maybe that would show that their cruelty was a choice, and not some innate flaw inherited from Poseidon.

"Your people are ruled by lords, right?" I asked after my silence had creeped on for too long. "They have a duty to look after their people. Keep their homes safe, help them through hard times and uphold the law. Protect them from foreign forces invading and criminals at home. That sort of thing."

"They like to think so," said Asha dryly. "Not all of them do as much, though they're not likely to forget what they think the smallfolk owe them."

"So isn't a god just another type of lord?" I suggested. "Only they're supposed to protect their people from a different kind of threat."

"Grumpkins and snarks? White walkers? Dragons?" she asked, teasingly. Hah. If only you knew, Asha. I've fought dragons before. I've even ridden one. Which my friend made. Out of spit, polish, and celestial bronze.

"Yes," I said seriously. Although I didn't know what the other three things she'd named were, I figured they were probably mythical creatures of some kinds, ghosts or fairies or similar. "All of that kind of thing as well. Though I was thinking of the kind of threat which comes from inside a person. The monster that men can become, not just the ones lurking under their beds."

"I see why Damphair likes you," she grumbled. "He's unable to stop himself from poking his nose in everyone's business and telling them what they should be doing."

"I got that impression," I admitted. "Baerag is pretty fond of him, though."

Asha hopped off the railing, turning around to lean on it and stare out over the beach. The Black Wind was creaking to and fro in the gentle breeze as sailors stowed their belongings in the hollow spaces beneath the decking.

"Baerag is a decent sailor," she said. "He learned what to do quickly, listened to what he was told but didn't let the others put him down. He's a credit to the Ironborn." She paused, and I saw her teeth clench. "He's not coming back on my crew."

I grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her round. She gasped in surprise, one hand flying to her dagger and the other to her mouth. It was a peculiar juxtaposition of startled girl and cautious warrior.

Without realising it I had stepped forwards. She was pressed against the railing where she had been leaning, and our bodies nearly touched. She let go of her dagger, not drawing it, and watched me closely.

I could feel the warmth of her breaths, sharp and quick with surprise. Her cheeks were tinged pink, more colour than just ruddiness from the sea breeze. I let go of her shoulder with a twinge of guilt. Oops. I hadn't meant to be quite so rough.

Manhandling women is bad, no matter what the daughters of Aphrodite were into.

"Why not?" I demanded. "Baerag's a good man, you said as much yourself. He asked to join your crew and pulled his fair share of the work."

Asha snorted again.

"You're so protective of your man," she said, and rolled her eyes.

"He's my friend," I replied. "Being a real Ironborn is something he's fought for his whole life. I won't let you tease him with it and then yank it away like this!"

"He's Ironborn. Nobody can take that away from him now. I'm just not letting him sail under me."

"Why not?"

"Because of this!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands wide to gesture at me. "Look at how you're standing up for him. And don't doubt that he'd do the same for you. He's not my man. He's yours. Nobody can serve two captains."

I sighed. She had a point, but still, rejection always stings. I didn't want Baerag to feel like he'd done anything wrong.

"Baerag isn't going to want to sail under my colours when he can follow you instead," she said. "Ask him."

"But if he said he wants to stay on your crew, would you let him?"

"Not a chance in your lord father's holy fucking name," she said. "If it makes you feel better, you can tell him he's still welcome on my crew. He isn't. But you can tell him that."

"What if he wants to stay with you, though?" I asked.

"He won't."

I opened my mouth to argue some more, but she interrupted me by pushing off the railing and shoving her way past me. I could have blocked her path, but escalating into an actual confrontation didn't seem like the right call, so I let her push me away.

She paused before she had gone three steps, and turned back.

"Look, I'll make you a bet. Invite him onto your crew. If he turns you down, I'll take him back as my forfeit for being so wrong. But I'm not wrong about this."

Asha was overboard and making her way across the sand before I could gather a rebuttal. Oh well. Baerag didn't need to know about this conversation. He could stay happy in his ignorance. He followed me around eagerly enough, but being an Ironborn raider was part of his life's dream. I didn't expect that meeting me would change that for him.

I found him by the fire, doling out portions of food to the freed slaves. Chunks of cooked meat wrapped in scraps of cloth. It wasn't fancy, but they'd probably been living off gruel for months.

"I'm not sailing back with the Black Wind," I told him. He straightened, passing the knife which he'd been using to hack off hunks of meat to the man squatting beside him, and came over to me.

"Are you taking the prize?" he asked, his voice hushed.

I blinked. He was checking around us furtively, to see who was near enough to listen in.

"Would it be a problem if I was?" I asked.

"For some," he said. "There's been talk. People speculating that you were going to take the prize and the thralls. Some of the crew aren't happy about you taking their share of the thralls."

"I'm not taking any thralls! I'm freeing them."

"That only makes a difference to you," he said. He hesitated, and looked back to the fire, where a bony man with nut-brown skin was cutting crude hunks of meat off the deer carcass. The man looked at the meat in his hands longingly, then passed it on to one of his compatriots. "He hasn't eaten yet," Baerag noted. "Funny that he's choosing to feed his fellows before taking any for himself." He went quiet for a moment, observing the man hand out more portions of campfire venison. At last he looked back to me.

"Maybe it makes a difference to them, as well," he said eventually.

"I thought you wanted all thralls to be freed?" I asked. I wasn't arguing. I was genuinely curious. He seemed to be a compassionate, caring individual, but I couldn't get a read on him. His Ironborn tendencies made his inner moral compass too slippery for me to get a grip on.

"I do," he said. "But it takes more than just telling a man that he's free."

"It's the first step."

Baerag smiled suddenly, and it lit up his face like a kid on Christmas.

"Yes, I know," he said. "And I'm...I'm really happy that we're taking it. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. This probably isn't going to end well. Once the Greyjoy finds out, there'll be blood over this, mark my words."

"Speaking of Greyjoys," I said, and trailed off uncertainly, not knowing how to broach the subject. "Do you want to stay under Asha's command?"

"She's a good captain," he said. There it was. So he did want to stay with her. I knew Asha was just being dramatic. I hoped that she had a good poker face. I didn't want Baerag to find out about our little bet. It'd either piss him off or hurt him. Knowing him, almost certainly the latter.

"Why are you asking?" he continued. I just shrugged. "Alright," he said, and kicked a shell that lay near his foot.

"I'll take the Antelope and our new friends," I said. "I don't need anyone behind an oar, so they'll be able to get some rest along the way and I can try to work out what we'll do once we get to Pyke. The rest of you can carry on home in the Black Wind without me hanging around and making everyone feel weird."

"Just you and the thralls?" exclaimed Baerag, raising his eyebrows. "Not a chance. What if they turn on you? They might decide they want to set out on their own, and they outnumber you by a long way. They could gut you in your sleep."

"I can defend myself," I said, amused. I tried not to laugh in his face because that would be rude, especially with the earnest look of concern he was wearing.

"You shouldn't have to. I'm coming with you," he declared.

I froze. What. I thought he wanted to stay on Asha's crew? I asked him as much.

"I said she's a good captain, not that she's who I want as my captain," he replied, lips tugging upwards into a wry smile. "I was waiting for you to invite me onto your crew."

Ah. I had made an assumption out of myself, or however the saying went.

"You could use a second pair of eyes on board," he continued. "I don't expect they'll dare to harm the man who rescued them, but desperate men do stupid, stupid things."

The men were loaded up on the Antelope as soon as all the food had been distributed. I couldn't understand the peculiar, lilting foreign tongue which they spoke amongst themselves, presumably one of the languages of Essos, the continent which lay on the far side of Westeros.

Baerag stood beside me, his back straight and hand close to his weapon. He had the body language of a personal guard down pat, if nothing else. I smiled, and stamped my foot on the deck for attention.

It was swallowed up by the sound of the wind and conversation.

"Men of Essos!" Baerag shouted. "Welcome aboard the free ship Antelope!"

They turned to look at him, confusion in most of their faces. I wondered whether that was because of the language barrier or because they just didn't understand what it was he was shouting about.

"Soon we will be at your new home in the Iron Islands. Those of you who wish to leave, may do so. Lordsport has ships travelling to every port in Westeros, and most of those beyond it. If you wish to stay and seek shelter under the patronage of Perseus Lodos-"

"Percy Jackson," I hissed.

"Percy Jackson will help find you homes. Work. Freedom. You have the rest of the voyage to decide." Yeah, about that. I had no idea how I was going to manage to settle these people onto the Iron Islands. I'd burn that bridge when I came to it.

It wasn't done yet, but it was decided.

I squeezed Baerag's shoulder, and he looked at me. His face was flushed, but he was grinning.

"This is where we begin," I told him. "By choosing what kind of man we want to be."

The copper-skinned warrior from among the oarsmen stomped his way up to us. He was grinning, too, a predatory expression which was all teeth and excitement.

"Good words," he said, and then jerked his head to indicate his fellow former slaves. "Wasted on these sheep men, but not on me."

"Jhakho!" cried Baerag, and clasped the other man's forearm in a welcoming gesture. I looked between them. They had gotten to know each other already?

"Baerag," he replied, inclining his head in acknowledgement. He released Baerag's arm, and tugged at his beard, studying us both.

"I haven't forgotten my promise," Baerag said. He reached up behind himself, and unhooked the leather thong which tied his axe to his back. "This is no arakh, but it's good beaten steel. Lightweight, sharp, as easy to use on a moving deck as it is on land." He held it out to Jhakho, and the Dothraki pulled the weapon loose from its bindings.

Jhakho swung it through the air, cocking his head to listen to it whistle through the air. He swung it again, whistling a high clear note through pursed lips in time to the singing of the steel.

He nodded, and looped the piece of leatherwork over his shoulder.

"Many thanks," he said. "Now I have a blade, I am half a man again. All I need now is a horse, and it will be as if these long years in a pit have never happened."


	12. Chapter 12

Not for the first time, I cursed the fact that everyone I met wanted to fight me.

Even my friends.

Especially my friends.

That's the problem with having half the people you know be battle-ready demigod heroes. We loved to fight. Monsters, gods, each other. Anything and everything goes.

But I had decided not to spar any of these mortals. They were fragile and I didn't want to risk hurting them. I wasn't very practiced with fighting mortals, and didn't know how much I had to pull my blows to refrain from killing them.

Steel screamed as it was swung through the air where my face had been.

Okay, so we're playing for keeps.

"Damn it, Jhakho," I shouted, leaping backwards and stepping to one side to avoid his next attack. "I said I wasn't going to fight you!"

"You're going to be fought!" he called, and pressed his attack further. He was fast, for a mortal, even after years of the muscles he needed for combat atrophying in favour of an oarsman's build. Sure, it took strength to pull an oar, but the human body needed to move in different ways for different tasks. Jhakho was a fraction of the warrior he had been.

And seemed determined to hone his skills on me.

"Percy doesn't spar," Baerag said, watching us in amusement from a short distance. "Believe me, Andrik tried for hours to convince him."

"Words," snorted Jhakho. He paused his attack and stood still, shoulders heaving as he breathed in and out heavily. "He will fight me. I will not serve a warrior unless I have seen him in combat."

"I fought the pirates who were keeping you chained up on this ship," I argued, indignant. Jhakho just launched himself at me once again in response.

It didn't take too much effort to evade his attacks. One on one, I could probably dance away from a mortal warrior for hours. I would get bored before I got tired.

I got bored.

I grabbed him by the wrist, halting the axe in mid-air, and headbutted the Dothraki warrior.

He fell to the floor, clutching at his face and howling.

The cry of pain gave way to laughter. He sat in a heap on the deck, holding his nose to staunch the bleeding, and laughing uproariously.

Yeah, he was going to fit in just fine among the Ironborn.

Jhakho stabbed the butt of the axe-haft into the deck, and used it to push himself back onto his feet.

"I told you," he said, voice thick with satisfaction. Or was that just the sound of his nose being broken?

Baerag laughed along, and I shot him a glare. It didn't stop him. I was glad he didn't bow and grovel in my presence, but a little fearful respect wouldn't go amiss every now and then. I was grumbling to myself, I noticed, so I forced myself to stop it.

"Captain Greyjoy tried attacking him as well, but she didn't manage to get a rise out of him like that," he said.

"I swear I'll turn this ship around," I muttered.

"Just don't turn it over," Baerag shot back.

I gave up.

"Fine, then," I said. "You want to fight me, you can fight me. Both of you, up in front of me."

They exchanged amused looks.

"Now!" I demanded in a voice which brooked no argument. They did as I asked, standing side by side. Jhakho took his hand away from his face. His moustache was stained red where blood was gathering, but the bleeding seemed to have slowed almost to a stop. He wiped at it with the back of a hand, and then flicked his wrist to scatter some of the excess blood away. Most of it remained as a smear on his skin.

I snapped my fingers, and the liquid pulled away from him, gathering in an orb barely larger than a grain of sand. His eyes widened at the sight, and he cursed in his native tongue.

"Maegi!" he muttered, and I rolled my eyes.

"This ship is moving on its own but a little bit of floating blood freaks you out?" I asked.

"Ships move without oars all the time," he said. "Wind pushes sails."

"There's no breeze. Just me."

Jhakho shrugged.

"Ships are ships. Blood maegi are blood maegi. Cursed."

I waved a hand, tossing the drop of blood into the sea.

"I'm not a blood mage, just the spawn of a sea god," I said. Jhakho grunted, looking unconvinced. I saw that his fingers were curled more tightly around his axe, and his eyes darted from me to Baerag rapidly.

Well, I knew one way to distract a man.

"Baerag, draw your sword," I ordered. "Both of you on me, now. Show me what you can do."

I summoned Anaklusmos, and settled into a ready pose with feet spread wide and blade raised.

Despite his hesitation, Jhakho was still quicker. A wicked gleam replaced the caution on his face, and he opened with a killing blow. If I had remained still, it would have torn my stomach open and left me to die a slow, painful death.

Baerag followed up, thrusting at my sword. I frowned. He was aiming to hit my weapon, not me. Was that because this was a spar, or was it how he thought people fought? That habit needed to go.

I reached past his steel and slapped his face with my spare hand.

Jhakha barked a laugh, and I stepped around him quicker than his head could turn, and cuffed him on the back of his head.

"Eyes on me, not my sword," I instructed. Jhakho aimed a blow at me, but I moved out of his way without looking, my attention fully on Baerag. He needed to hear this. "Don't focus on your enemy's weapon, or it'll be the next thing you feel. Be aware of it, but don't watch it. Watch the person you're fighting. Watch his eyes. Watch the way he moves. See where he's going and be somewhere else."

Baerag lunged at me, and this time he was looking at my torso. The point of his sword drove at the spot he was staring at. Better, but not perfect. That telegraphed exactly what he was doing. Even a mortal would be able to see that coming.

And a mortal warrior would be able to do something about it.

I caught the steel with Anaklusmos, pushing it aside with the flat of the blade. I took care not to strike his weapon with the edge of mine - I didn't want to go hacking it into pieces. I stepped past his attack, under his guard, and shoved him with my shoulder.

He fell to the deck, and I continued going forwards in one smooth motion, the point of my sword pressing into his chin.

Jhakho tried to sweep my legs out from under me, an attack which would have hamstrung me had it struck. I stepped over the axe, one foot at a time like I was skipping over the world's deadliest jump rope.

As Jhakho stumbled to one side, recovering from his attack, I caught a glimpse of his axe out of the corner of my eye. No, it wouldn't have hamstrung me. He'd reversed it before he'd swung, striking out with the blunt side of the head.

I was strangely pleased by the fact that he wasn't actually trying to injure me.

I kicked him in the knee and he collapsed.

"Your weapon doesn't end at the hilt," I told Baerag. "It goes through your fingers and up your arm. Some people say a weapon should be part of your body. Your body should also be part of your weapon. Let them move together seamlessly, and nobody will be able to stand against you."

Jhakho rushed me again. I reached behind me with one hand, still not turning to look at him, and grabbed him by his bicep. His momentum carried him forwards and I flung him over my shoulder. He flew over Baerag and crashed into the mast.

He groaned, and rolled over.

I dismissed my sword with a thought, and stood back, offering Baerag a hand to help him up.

He accepted it, smiling ruefully.

"I'm not much of a warrior," he admitted.

"You're just a boy," said Jhakho between pained moans. He pushed himself off the deck to sit slumped against the mast. "Season yourself with blood a few times. You'll learn." He grinned, and his teeth shone red with blood. "I'll teach you how to fight like a Dothraki."

Baerag eyed him, bruised and battered and leaning on the mast for support.

"Do all Dothraki fight as well as you?"

Jhakho scowled.

"I'll show you how a Dothraki fights," he said, and shoved himself up. He swayed on his feet unsteadily.

Maybe he should sit this one out. I looked at the wounds I had inflicted on him. His face was bloody, but he didn't have any injuries more serious than bruises and a broken nose.

Nothing major, but enough to call it a day.

"Haven't you had enough?" I suggested. It was the wrong thing to say. Jhakho reached out to touch his fallen axe with his foot, and pulled it closer before leaning down to pick it back up.

"You might be able to defeat me without even bothering to look at me while you do it, but I can fight any other man on this ship," he insisted. "I'll show you why Jhakho earned his place as bloodrider."

He was scowling fiercely enough that I decided not to say anything. I realised that I had probably insulted him by beating him down so dismissively while lecturing Baerag. It was one of the things I'd been afraid of when I'd refused to spar with Andrik.

Damn. I'd tried to avoid it, but stop paying attention for a moment and I'm doing exactly what I promised not to do. ADHD had nothing on my low attention span. Annabeth was probably being too generous when she called me Seaweed Brain.

Well, if it helped soothe his pride, I could let him knock Baerag around a bit. The extra practice would do them both some good, and I would be able to step in if it looked like anyone was actually going to get hurt.

I nodded, and stepped back.

Baerag looked at me, eyes wide.

"Percy, what-"

Jhakho's axe interrupted him. He jumped away with a yelp and fell to his hands and knees, scrabbling for his sword. Once he had it, he rose upwards, thrusting the sword in an uppercut as he did so. It was clean, smooth. Using the motion of standing up as part of the fight instead of an obstacle to overcome before beginning to address his foe.

It was an improvement.

I watched them for a while, and at first Jhakho was a bit overzealous. Whether it was wounded pride, a lack of practice, or a desire to impress, I couldn't tell. Probably all three. But it meant that he kept coming at Baerag almost as if he had the intent to actually kill him.

After a few minutes of frantic dodging, Baerag's reactions began to slow considerably. Jhakho noticed this, and adjusted what he was doing. Soon he was guiding Baerag through slow re-enactments of different attacks, instructing him on how to respond, how to move to dodge the blow and turn it into an advantage.

Baerag was unpolished, but I could tell he had potential. Jhakho's fighting style was savage and furious. I was eager to see what he'd be like in a real fight. There was bound to be one waiting around the corner, knowing my luck.

They carried on drilling for most of the day, taking long breaks of several hours to rest between sessions. Watching them passed the time as well as staring out at the sea. The others gave us a wide berth, unwilling to be caught in the fray.

If I tried to get the Antelope back to Pyke in a single day, the ship would probably splinter under the force. I didn't know for certain, but it was in such a poor state of repair that I didn't want to chance it.

I was helping to hold the ship together with my power, but there's a difference between playing god and playing with fire.

Two days. I would restrain myself to two days. It would take the Black Wind perhaps three times that or more to make its way home, so that meant I could sneak under the radar, at least a little bit, and try to get these people settled somewhere safe before rumours of my recent adventure began flying around.

Baerag hadn't pressed the point, and was amenable to describing these people as free, but I had a suspicion he still thought of them as thralls, save for Jhakho. He treated them kindly enough, but that was just his nature.

The rest of the Ironborn were likely not going to be as co-operative. I was determined to make sure they understood the difference between a free man working for someone else and a slave who was owned by someone else.

And I was determined to make sure the men I'd freed understood it as well. Something told me that they would be harder to convince.

They were spread over the deck of the Antelope, some talking in small groups, and others sitting by themselves staring into space. If I was honest with myself, I was worried about what might happen once we got to Pyke.

I could defend them easily enough, but would the Ironborn just see that as a jealous owner protecting his property? Would the freed men see the same?

It was no good worrying about this while we were all stuck on the Antelope. I could demonstrate my sincerity properly once we were on shore. I'd set them free and taken care of them, but I could have just been a kind slave-owner to their eyes.

They needed the opportunity to choose what they wanted. That wasn't going to happen here, but on Pyke I could make options available.

Luckily I could propel the ship night and day, so we could maintain this incredible travelling speed until we arrived at Lordsport.

Once night had fallen and the former crew found cubby holes and corners of the ship to curl up in, I sprawled out on the empty deck and enjoyed the occasional light spray of water against my closed eyelids.

It was soothing and relaxing to me. Where another man might have been jolted awake by the random spattering of icy water and left unable to rest, I was lulled into my sleep like a baby.

"You're nearly flying," said the three-eyed crow.

I wished I had a rock so I could throw something at it.

The darkness subsided, and, yeah, there it was again, Westeros laid out like a map before me. It was fully night, and the land was dark. I could see the lights of towns and cities in the distance, but they were tiny embers against the overwhelming velvet blackness of night. Nothing like the vigorous light pollution of modern cities back home.

The sky was clear, and the number of stars was incredible.

My hands wouldn't work. My legs wouldn't move. I opened my mouth to shout, and the voice of a seagull cried out.

Yep. It was this again.

"Wouldn't you like to learn to fly?" asked the crow. "What if you could do this whenever you wanted?"

"Zeus," I said in response. It cocked its head and looked at me with one beady black eye.

"What did you say?"

"Zeus," I said again. And because three was a magically significant number, I called his name again. "Zeus."

Right on cue, thunder rumbled.

"I don't understand," said the crow,

"I don't understand why Zeus is so grouchy either," I said in a conversational tone. "But he's the god of the sky, not me, so I leave his domain alone whenever I can help it."

The crow's words were swallowed by the crack of lightning. I felt pain, searing pain, and absolute satisfaction.

I woke up, gasping for breath on the deck of the Antelope.

Yeah, take that you burnt pigeon. I'd like to say my uncle was looking out for me, but in a pinch I'd settle for catching my enemies in the crossfire of Zeus' attempts to smite me.

Was the three-eyed crow an enemy?

I laughed, and ran a hand through my hair. A weird talking animal appearing in my dreams and snagging control of my body, sticking me in a bird and working me like a puppet? Yeah, that sounds like somebody who's looking out for my wellbeing.

The storm clouds rumbled in the distance, and I sat up suddenly. I made my way over to the opposite side of the ship and squinted into the sky.

It was a clear night, save for a localised thunderstorm in the distance. Huh. Was that where I had been a moment ago, doing my best impression of KFC? The wind picked up, and the clouds began to move.

Towards me.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Don't you even dare," I warned.

They moved closer, and the wind grew stronger. It howled in my ears like a starving wolf, and lightning struck against the horizon. The silhouette of land was outlined by the flash for a fraction of a second.

I began to grow angry. The sky belonged to Zeus but this was not the sky. This was the sea.

I had been in the middle of a hurricane before, and it had started off as something a lot like this. The ship's mast swayed, and creaked, and I heard alarmed cries from belowdecks.

Within moments, there were clouds around and over the ship. Lightning speared through the air with violent cracks, each bolt closer to the ship than the last. They weren't all coming from one direction, but rather from all of them, striking here and there like sharks circling the ship.

"I'm warning you," I said, loudly this time. I clenched my teeth. How dare he trespass on my ship like this? Zeus was overbearing and arrogant in the worst kind of ways. He had made my life hell with his ridiculous rules, and gone on to break them himself whenever he felt like it. He was the reason Luke had turned to Kronos, the reason why Mom had nearly died. Almost everything which went wrong in my life could be traced back to him in one way or another.

There was a resounding boom as a thick rope of lightning slammed into the figurehead of the Antelope. The shock of bright white was blinding, but through squinted eyes I saw the battered wooden carving sheared clean off our prow and felt my anger blossom into sudden rage.

"You come into my house!" I roared. "And you destroy my things? Threaten my people? No! I won't allow it."

The wind howled again, this time in another direction. The air was heavy with forces pushing to and fro, the kind of chaotic winds which would form a tornado or hurricane or just plain tear a ship apart.

I reached deep into my power, and pushed outwards. Galeforce winds responded to my call. They rushed around me, over and around the ship. Wind strong enough to lift a man from his feet smashed into the stormfront and pushed it back.

Baerag crawled out from below, pushed almost onto his hands and knees by the power in the air. He stumbled and fell to the deck but didn't stop, crawling towards me with his face turned down to protect it.

I glared at the clouds overhead. How dare the Storm God put my friend at risk? I threw all my anger into my power and screamed in fury to match the screaming wind.

Lightning struck in places, but my winds tore the clouds apart as soon as the energy for the bolts began to form. There was a clear sky above my ship, and a localised hurricane all around it.

I held the winds, restraining their immense power like I was compressing the coils of a spring. The pressure built, and I felt a hard tug behind my navel.

I released the storm, and it shot towards the retreating clouds as a solid mass of raging power.

The Antelope rocked, and the breeze fell still.

My anger subsided as soon as the clouds were out of sight.

I shivered, suddenly overcome with a chill. The hair stood up on the back of my neck like I had stuck a finger in a power outlet. What was that? Where had that anger come from? That wasn't like me.

It had been more like Dad.

Or even Zeus himself, incandescent with fury that someone had trespassed in his domain. Like I had done just minutes ago.

I hadn't cared at all when he had tried to smite me in the body of the bird. Not just because it wasn't my body, but because I knew it was coming. Counted on it, even.

It wasn't unreasonable to expect that his wrath would follow me back to my real body, but I had reacted as if it was. I had been furious to see Baerag pushed down by the winds, but that had been my doing, not the Storm God.

I shivered again, and the skin of my arms prickled.

I had nearly hurt my friend in the throes of some kind of alien tantrum. And I had only realised that the people on the ship could be in danger as an afterthought. My anger started because the storm had trespassed onto my domain.

This was dangerous. I needed to speak to Dad. Soon.

"Percy?" asked Baerag, staggering over to me as if he was drunk. I checked him over, and was relieved to see he wasn't hurt, just unsteady after the storm.

"Thank Poseidon you're alright," I said, and grabbed him by the shoulder to help hold him upright. "I thought I might have hurt you."

"I'm fine," he said, staring at me. "What happened? Was that you?"

I pointed at the prow, where a charred stump was all that remained of our figurehead.

"The storm was going to destroy the ship," I said weakly. "I tried to stop it, but I think I got carried away."

Baerag clasped my hand and squeezed my fingers tightly.

"You fought off the Storm God," he whispered, eyes opened wide with wonder.

Jhakho grabbed me roughly, yanking me away from Baerag. The younger man tried to push the Dothraki's hands off me, but the warrior just shoved him away with his shoulder.

"You," he demanded. "What the fuck are you? Blood maegi? Sea maegi? Storm maegi? I swore myself to serve a sea khal. A warrior. Not a fucking maegi." His voice was angry, but his face was white with panic. So, he responds to fear with violence. Not entirely unexpected.

Fortunately, I was completely drained of anger after my unexpected burst of emotion, so I didn't raise my temper to meet his. I didn't even move his hands off me. I just looked at him.

"I'm not a maegi," I said, feeling as tired as my Mom looked whenever a school principal called her in to let her know I wouldn't be coming back. "I'm just Percy Jackson."

"And who is Percy Jackson?" asked Jhakho.

"I'm the son of the sea god Poseidon, who the Ironborn call the Drowned God. That makes me a demigod. Where I come from, they call people like me heroes."

"So you're a hero?" he asked, lip curling upwards in something which could have been a smile, could have been a sneer.

It irritated me, breaking me out of the numb fug that the storm's departure had left me in. I placed a hand on the centre of his chest and pushed him away. Not so violently that he went flying, but hard enough to make him stagger two steps back.

I felt my hackles rise and settling my expression into a wolf stare.

"Yeah, I'm a hero," I said. "Got a problem with that?"

"Percy Jackson," he said, lips pulled back to bare his teeth. "That's the only part of what you said that I don't have a problem with."

The still air was broken by a single clear note, the ring of steel as Baerag drew his sword.

"If you have a problem with Percy, I have a problem with you," he said evenly.

"The only god I fight for is the Great Stallion, god of horses," said Jhakho. He clenched his fists but, thankfully, did not reach for the axe which hung on his back.

I relaxed immediately.

"Oh, that's okay then," I said, and smiled at him disarmingly. It had the opposite effect, and Baerag flinched back. "What if I told you that Poseidon is also the god of horses?"

"I'd say you're full of shit," Jhakho muttered, and spat on the deck. And then he looked at me, considering. "No shit?" he asked.

"No shit," I agreed. "Dad hit a rock with his trident broke it open to create Skyphios, the first horse."

"Any Dothraki tells tall tales about his father, but that's a bold lie to tell," he said. His mouth moved again, but this time I saw it was clearly a smile. Good. I'd let him think I'm lying if he wanted, so long as it defused this situation a bit.

May as well ham it up some more, then.

"And one day he fancied having a go at Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. She wasn't into it so she turned into a mare and ran away. He turned into a stallion and chased after her. She ended up giving birth to an immortal stallion named Arion. Arion can run faster than sound travels, and he can leap the length of this ship."

"Is that so?" asked Jhakho, placing a hand at his mouth to stroke his beard contemplatively. His eyes shone with amusement, but he schooled his smile into a blank poker face.

Baerag listened with clear fascination, leaning forwards eagerly to hear more about Dad.

"He even hooked up with this woman in another goddess' temple. The stuff they did was so raunchy and debased that the goddess cursed her to become a monster. Since she was a monster, their kids were trapped in her body, but then one day my cousin came along and cut off her head and two horses leapt out from the stump."

"Two horses this time? He's getting better with practice," said Jhakho in amusement. Baerag laughed, and the Dothraki man grinned at him. I was happy to see it. It seemed like the horse-obsessed warrior was beginning to relax a bit. He didn't seem to believe anything I was saying, but it was distracting him from the display of power which had unnerved him so badly.

"One of them had wings," I admitted, and he clapped his hands together.

"You brag like a Dothraki," he declared. "If you can ride as well as you spin stories, I will be glad to call you my khal.

I laughed, and both of them looked at me in confusion.

"I can ride a horse as easily as I can ride a ship," I boasted. "You have no concerns there."

"So if your father is the god of the sea and the god of horses," mused Jhakho. "What does that make you the god of?"

A wave of dizziness threatened to overcome me. Black vision. White spots. Ringing like bells, ringing like swords clashing. Ringing like prayer in my ears.

The shadow of Perseus Lodos swam in front of my eyes.

I shook my head, hard, forcing the vision away. I groaned. A headache began to present itself. The inside of my skull thumped like music I couldn't hear was being played too loud. It felt as if my brain was too small, shrinking and pulling away from the bone.

"Don't mess with my metaphysics," I asked, rather uselessly because I didn't even really know what it was that triggered these episodes. "I'm just the god of Percy Jackson, alright?"

The ringing started up again.

"Demigod. I meant to say demigod," I said, my voice a smidge louder than it should have been.

Something must have shown on my face, because Baerag touched my elbow hesitantly.

"Percy, are you okay?" he asked.

"I've got a headache coming on," I said, mostly telling the truth. "I think fighting off that storm took a lot out of me," I said, mostly telling a lie. "I'm going to try to get some more sleep." And this time I was telling the absolute truth. "We've got another day of travelling ahead of us tomorrow, and I need a clear head to try to plan what I'm going to do with everyone. You should try to get some rest as well. You'll need your energy to keep up your sword drills with Jhakho."


	13. Chapter 13

Twenty three men had been enslaved on the Antelope. Jhakho had decided to join Baerag in following me around, so that left twenty two who needed me to make a life for them.

I couldn't just show up and march up to Pyke Keep with this band tagging along behind me. I didn't have much hope for Balon's hospitality. No, I needed somewhere else to take them. They were beginning to grow restless, confined on the ship for two days and nights with nothing to do but wonder what lay at the end of this journey.

Pyke Island was a faint smudge on the horizon. I could see the postage-stamp squares of white and black and other colours besides, the sails of longships as they moved between the islands. There were other vessels, too, from cogs to carracks and more besides.

Baerag pointed out a large ship which sat low in the water with a fat belly and timbers stained black with tar. A whaler from the distant ports of Ibben, he said. Ibben was an island nation at the eastern edge of the known world, populated by short, squat people covered in bristly hair.

Among the variety of ships and bustle of the harbour, we'd probably pass unnoticed. But if we stopped to mill about aimlessly looking for somewhere to go, we were bound to draw the wrong kind of attention.

I drew the Antelope to a halt. We floated stationary in the water, too far from the island for any human to swim.

Jhakho came to find me soon after.

"We've stopped moving," he said.

"I know. We can't just sail up to the harbour and go wandering around," I said. "I'm going to scout ahead, meet with some people I know. Hopefully they'll be able to help us make arrangements to house everyone."

Jhakho tilted his head, hand resting on the haft of his axe. It wasn't a threatening gesture; he was just in a relaxed posture.

"You don't have enough room in your home for these men?" he asked. "Then why did you capture so many slaves?"

"I didn't capture any slaves!" I insisted. "I freed them. Including you. Do you feel like a slave, right now?"

Jhakho shrugged, lifting a hand with the motion.

"I am Dothraki, not a slave. Even when I was in that pit, I was still Dothraki. Those men," he said, gesturing with a nod of his head towards the other end of the ship. "Those men are slaves in their hearts. They will work for you because it is all that they know."

"Then it's time they learned something new," I said.

"Some things a man does not learn. Some things a man is."

I scowled.

"A man is not property, not matter what someone with a whip and chains might tell them. They're not going to work for me. They're going to work for themselves. I'm just going to help them do it."

"How?"

"First I'm going to meet with my people on the island and find a place we can go to get off this ship. Then anyone who wants to leave can go anywhere they want. I'll put them on a ship going to whichever corner of the world they like, or they can stay here and I'll help them make a home on the Iron Islands."

Jhakho hummed noncommittally, studying me at length. I couldn't decipher his expression. Whether he approved or disapproved of my decision was a mystery to me.

"Go around the men and see which of them can speak the Common Tongue," I said. "Find out if they have any skills, if any of them have a trade they can go back to. I hear there's always work available in the mines, but I'm not keen on sending anyone down a hole."

"Very well," he said. "But how are you getting to shore? This ship has no boats."

I winked, took a step back, and threw myself over the railing.

Splash.

I was on Pyke within minutes. When I set my mind to it, I could move through the water insanely fast.

But the slow part started here. I had no idea where to start looking for the crew I'd left behind.

So I tried looking for me, instead.

"Hey," I said to a bored looking guard standing outside a warehouse.

"Whadda ya want?" he said through a heavy yawn. He blinked several times, as if I'd woken him from a nap. I could have sworn his eyes were open, but perhaps he'd mastered the art of sleeping on the job. While standing up. Outside. In a light rain.

"I'm looking for Percy Jackson," I said, suppressing the mad urge to giggle like a naughty schoolchild. I felt bizarre doing this, but it was probably the quickest way to track down my people. If this didn't work, I'd have to hunt around all the little fishing villages to find Damphair and his travelling sermons so I could ask him where I should be looking.

"Who?" grunted the guard, and I felt a twinge of annoyance. Not because he didn't know who I was, but because of the part which came next.

"The new Lodos," I said reluctantly, and the guard stood a little straighter, his eyes a little more alert. Although they were still speckled with a crust of rheumy gunk.

"Oh, aye, I hear this Lodos is putting together a fine crew," he said. His voice wasn't quite eager, but there was some more life in it than there had been before. "Andrik the Unsmiling, Harritt Sandblown, Berryn Pyke and Berryn Lackhand both. And Snagtooth Jon and the Witch of Dorne, and-"

I coughed lightly, interrupting his long list of names. He glowered, but stopped rattling off what seemed to be the registry for a crew which had sprung up in my absence.

"Do you know where I can find him?"

"Eh," he said, sticking a finger in his ear and twisting it around. "Might do."

He looked me up and down, and his lip curled up into a sneer.

"What, you think they'd take on a runt like you?"

I resembled a Greek god. Literally and, yeah, maybe a little bit figuratively as well. Runt was absolutely the wrong word to describe me, so this guy was just being a dick. I wasn't bothered, but I was in a rush.

"I think they might," I said carefully. The guard hawked a gob of phlegm up and spat it out. Onto the back of his hand. He inspected it for a moment, and then wiped it on his trousers.

Gross.

"Inside," he said, and moved out of the doorway. He jabbed a thumb at the door, as if I didn't know what inside meant.

I narrowed my eyes. No way had I wandered up to a random warehouse, deliberately picking one a few streets away from the main thoroughfare, and stumbled across the place I was looking for. There was predestination and then there was bullshit.

This was a great big steaming pile of coincidence.

"They're not in your warehouse," I said. Although, to be fair, weird shit did happen around me. And I hadn't checked inside, so I had no way to know for certain.

"I didn't say they was, did I?" he retorted. "I said go inside, an' then I'll tell you. Don't want everyone hearing."

The street was pretty quiet. An old man drove a donkey cart past just before I had spoken to the guard, and there was a small amount of foot traffic, but there was certainly nobody close enough to hear. Or who seemed inclined to eavesdrop.

Whatever. I needed to get this over with.

I was wary, but I went inside. It was almost pitch black for a moment, until my eyes adjusted to the gloom. The door slammed shut behind the guard as he followed me in.

A knife pressed against my stomach.

"Right lad," he said, the sour stink of unwashed breath making me wrinkle my nose in disgust. "Your coin. All of it. Now. And don't even think of shoutin'. There's nobody in here but you an' me."

I groaned, and shook my head in irritation.

"Do you even know where I can find the crew?"

"Pollon's crew are the only ones you need to worry about in these streets, boy. Most folks have more sense than to go asking questions in our territory. Now hand it over!" He pressed the knife against me harder. It wasn't even sharp enough to cut through the coarse linen shirt I was wearing. How did he expect to fight a demigod with what basically amounted to a stick?

"So let me get this straight," I said, hitting him with my best wolf stare. He flinched, and his hand wavered. It actually kind of tickled, the way he jiggled the tip of the knife against my stomach. "A pilgrim comes up to you looking to serve the Drowned God. But you decide to rob him because being asked for directions goes against your lousy street gang's code of conduct?"

"I'll gut you!" he snarled.

"Try me."

He shuddered as if pulling himself together, and then drew his arm back to launch a thrust at me. That's right. He had a weapon touching my skin and then moved it away to wind up an obvious telegraphed attack, instead of just pushing the lame little thing straight through my skin.

What a loser.

I backhanded him so hard he flew into the solid oaken door we'd just come through. Oh, and it looks as though he put the bar down to lock us in. Which meant that he crashed into the door instead of just tumbling through it.

I kicked him in the face before he had finished crumpling to the ground.

It wasn't necessary. I just didn't like him.

I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright. Somehow he was still holding onto the knife and he managed to bring it down on my arm. I caught his wrist before the blow connected, and squeezed until bones creaked and he dropped the blade with a yelp.

"Where can I find my crew?" I asked him. He babbled incoherent nonsense, some venomous mix of swearing and threats. I slammed him back against the door, causing his skull to crack against the wood. "Tell me now," I demanded, and released him.

He fell heavily to his knees, and stayed there, kneeling at my feet with his head bowed.

"Alright," he gasped. "Alright, I'll tell you."

And so he did.

I didn't entirely trust his directions, but it was better than nothing, and I decided to give them a shot. At worst, he was pointing me towards the home base for his gang in the hopes of getting me killed by thugs. I could handle that, easily.

Just plain fighting people was so much easier than trying to order them not to do awful things for fun and profit.

Halfway up a hill, an hour's walk from Lordsport, I came across a longhouse with a bright orange glow flickering through its windows. I could hear music from wind and string instruments carrying on the breeze, and as I grew closer I began to pick out laughter and conversation as well.

It looked as though it could have been a minor lord's hall, or perhaps a particularly nice tavern. A few other buildings stood nearby.

I veered off the path up to the door of the longhall, and made my way among the other buildings instead. Just in case.

The hall was too merry to be acquainted with that miserable loser from the warehouse in any way, but I wanted to get my bearings before sticking my head indoors.

One was a blacksmith's forge, and beside it was a workshop which looked similar with its heavy stone moulds and crucibles, yet the moulds were far too large for any sort of metalwork the locals might be using.

I didn't recognise many of the tools hanging inside, either.

There was a rack full of dozens and dozens of long-handled iron mallets and hooks, and I wondered what craftsman would need so many of the same tool for. I would have thought they were goods for sale if not for the pockmarks of rust and wear.

Large trenches were cut into the hillside and lined with stone. They were deep pits ten paces long and two across, covered by iron gratings. I saw one of the long-handled mallets discarded in the grass by a trench.

I had no idea what this was for. Some craftsman, or group of craftsmen working to a common purpose, I guessed. People sharing land and facilities and labour in order to combine their skills in new ways.

The notion was a bit like how the crew of a ship worked, each individual making a contribution which added up to something greater than any one man could do. It would be a nice surprise if the Ironborn were able to work together as efficiently on land as at sea.

I skulked around outside for a while, but couldn't delay it forever. Sooner or later I had to face the music.

That's not a figure of speech. I literally had to go in the hall where music was playing.

I took a breath to steel myself, and shoved the door open. A blast of heat and sound struck me in the face. Crossing the threshold of the hall was as abrupt a transition as diving underwater might be.

Dozens and dozens of people sat or stood around the room, talking and laughing. I felt almost shy, unusual for me. It was as if I was intruding on a party I hadn't been invited to.

I scanned the room, trying to pick out familiar faces.

This building was all one large room, trestle tables running down its length and a sunken firepit set into the centre of the floor. The air was surprisingly free of smoke. Although the fire was roaring merrily away, a cast iron chimney hung above it, and slats cut out in the roof allowed the stray smoke to escape.

I didn't know anything about metalwork, but the chimney looked unusually well made. Perhaps it had been made by whoever ran the forge in the next building.

I made my way over to it and stretched my hands out over the fire. I wasn't cold, but something was special about the radiant heat from an open fire. It was comforting in a way which went beyond heat.

"Percy Jackson!" called out a woman, and then Helwren staggered to fall against me. She snickered, and pushed herself off. She didn't just stand up, but lolled her head around like a cat's, twisting around to look at me.

Her face was flushed and I could smell the bitter tang of ale on her breath.

"You need a drink," she said, and grabbed me by the hand. "Come."

"Are we celebrating something?" I asked, bemused. She actually giggled in response.

"You mean you don't know? I thought that's why you were here. We're celebrating you, Percy."

Hmm. Okay. This was officially not my birthday.

I glanced around, and now that Helwren was pulling me in the right direction I was able to make out Andrik, Harritt and Berryn sitting at the head of the room. A woman perched on the edge of the table in front of Berryn, leaning far enough forwards that she was spilling out of her dress and onto his lap.

His expression of disinterest was clear even from across the hall. I saw him ignore her to mutter something in Harritt's ear, and the older man grinned, clasped his forearm, and got up from his seat.

Harritt met us halfway across the room.

"So you're back," he said. "How was your trip?"

"I would normally say it was eventful," I began, and looked around the festivities pointedly. "But I didn't put on an actual event. What's with the party?"

Harritt reached up behind his back to scratch himself, looking somewhat sheepish.

"Ah, well, we just got our hands on this place and wanted to break the hall in," he said. "We've been pushing the crew pretty hard, so I figured giving them a night to enjoy was the decent thing to do."

"Have you recruited all these people?" I asked in horror. "There must be fifty people in here!"

"More like a hundred," said Helwren, and shoved a glass into my hands. I'd taken a sip before I fully looked at it. Huh. It was an actual glass tumbler. I'd been expecting a wooden cup or a drinking horn or something. Maybe a tin goblet if they were breaking out the fancy stuff.

The glass was lumpy and cloudy by my exacting modern standards, the kind of flawed batch which would get thrown out or sold at discount stores. Still, it wasn't something I'd expected to find on Pyke.

The distraction of the drink only lasted for a moment, and then my seaweed brain caught up to what Helwren had just said.

"You've recruited a hundred people," I said flatly.

They both burst out laughing. Well, Harritt chuckled. Helwren sprayed me with a mouthful of ale.

I only just caught it in time. The scattered drops of amber liquid hung in the air, inches from my face. I closed my hand, and they fell to the floor.

"Sorry," she said, not looking abashed at all.

Andrik loomed out of the crowd to slap a hand on her shoulder.

"How many is that now?" he asked in a neutral tone, looking at the cup in her hand. It was a piece of crudely shaped metal, much more in line with what I'd expect of an Ironborn drinking session.

She folded her arms and looked up at him with a cross expression.

"The same number as you," she replied. "Not even one more. I've been keeping track."

"I weigh three times what you do, Hel," he said, and sighed. "And I'm used to drink. You hardly touch a drop, except wine on feastdays."

"Don't spoil my fun," she demanded, and stamped her foot.

Next to his ridiculously large frame, she looked like a child. The stamping just cemented it further, and I couldn't help but smile at the bizarre sight.

Andrik sighed again, and took the cup out of her hand.

"Alright," he said, and downed the rest of her ale. "I won't. But at least drink the pear wine, not this swill. I bought it for you."

She agreed, and went off in search of the promised pear wine.

"So," I began again. "One hundred recruits? Are you serious?"

Andrik shook his head solemnly.

"Eighty guests tonight," he said. "Perhaps another score who came with them uninvited."

"We brought in four men each. Four women, if you count Helwren's girls," said Harritt. He exchanged a look with Andrik. "Which we do. They've been useful already, and we had a feeling that this crew might need some unconventional skills, more than just the strength of an axe."

"That's you, Andrik, Berryn and Helwren, then?" I asked, scrunching up my face as I worked out the numbers. "Sixteen people that you've taken on?"

"Nine of us have sat behind an oar and blooded our steel," said Harritt, nodding in agreement. "The others bring something else on board which might be useful. Like this place."

"What is this place, anyway?"

"This is my cousin's complex," said Harritt. "He's a glassblower. This hall was going to be for his family, but the noise from his work drove Sannel mad. She forced him to move back into town. It's just been used for storage for the past couple of years. It's ours to use as we need. Meeting space, dining hall, whatever you like. We're planning on setting up a proper training yard outside. Now that you're back we can really get started putting it to use."

"Is that what the trenches are for outside?" I asked dubiously. I suppose they could be used as an obstacle for some kind of training or war game simulation, but I didn't really see that working out too well.

Harritt snorted and took a gulp from his drink. I noticed that he had a glass as well. His had a thick fracture-line running through the base and it was almost opaque in places.

"No, those are for burning kelp in," he said. "Leith burns it down into flux for his glass. Sells a bit on the side, too."

I wondered if he was selling more than just a bit of whatever it was he made. A large, well-made building like this was bound to be worth a lot of rent money, even if it was a bit of a trek away from Lordsport. Was he so flush he could afford to just give us free reign over the place and not bat an eyelid?

"What does he want in exchange for us crashing here?" I asked. Harritt shrugged, and abandoned his empty glass on the nearest table.

"I said I'd beat him bloody if he didn't do his duty," he said.

I choked.

"You threatened him into giving his property to you?" I asked, not even sure why I continued to be appalled at the things the Ironborn did. And this was supposed to be his cousin, as well!

"He was willing anyway," Harritt said dismissively. "He just wanted a favour in exchange. I set him straight. You don't barter over gold with the Drowned One. Give a gift, and maybe you'll receive one. But you don't haggle the gold price like God is a fishwife at the market."

"What was the favour?" I asked. "I might be able to do it for him, if it's reasonable. I don't want to take this place and give nothing in exchange."

"That'd be decent of you," he said, completely nonchalantly. "Don't put yourself out, though. He should really be solving his own problems."

"Speaking of problems, you said we can use this place for whatever we need? How about as a dormitory?"

"You want to bunk the crew all together, eh? I won't deny I had the thought as well, but with the noise of the forge so close by, I wouldn't want to force it on them. Sannel's no soft greenlander weeping at a sore head, y'see. Times are Leith and his lads have to work through the night to get things done. Hammering and banging and such at all hours. Not every night, but too often to be making the crew bed down near to it."

"I was thinking just for a few days while I make better arrangements," I said. Hopefully Leith didn't have any urgent jobs on the go. I had a feeling he wasn't too busy at the moment by the way it was the middle of the day and he wasn't at work.

"But I wasn't asking for the crew," I continued. "I picked up some strays on the raid, and they need somewhere to go while I sort things out for them."

Harritt raised an eyebrow.

"How many thralls did you take?"

"None!" I snapped, perhaps too vehemently because he flinched back and looked at me with a mixture of confusion and irritation. Tone it down, Percy. Harritt is asking these questions for the first time, and I shouldn't get bitchy with him just because I was repeating myself over and over.

"I set them all free," I said. Harritt nodded along as if he understood.

"Okay, so they're free. But give me a number. How many?"

"Twenty three," I replied. "Only Jhakho is coming aboard the crew to fight with us, so it's really twenty two left to find a solution for."

"Jhakho," mused Harritt. "That's a Dothraki name if I ever heard one."

"He was a bloodrider before he was put in chains."

"That could be interesting," he said slowly. "They're the fiercest warriors you'll ever meet on a horse. I'd like to see how they shape up on a ship instead." He met my gaze suddenly, and grabbed me by the forearm. "Alright, then. Where are you hiding these people? Where's Baerag, and Asha's crew, as well?"

I pointed to the horizon, where the Antelope was a smudge of brown and white against the sea.

"I came ahead of the crowds," I said. "Didn't want to drop anchor unless I knew we had a safe harbour here."

Harritt snorted.

"Safe might not be the right word. The Greyjoy was furious about Helwren being freed and this is so much worse. If Damphair hadn't been there when she was drowned and returned to us, I expect she'd be at the bottom of the ocean by now. Andrik right by her side." He paused, and looked away. "Do you have any idea what to do with these thralls once you've got them here and told them that they're free?"

"I've got Jhakho and Baerag going through them to find out what trades they had before they were galley slaves. See if any of them have useful skills that I could find work for. Most of them don't speak the Common Tongue, which makes it harder. But anyone can push a plough, and everyone needs to eat. Some of them might have families or homes to return to in Essos. I'll make that happen for anyone who wants to try their luck and see what's left for them there."

"There's always work going in the mines," suggested Harritt. "It's rough work, but there's a need for more thralls there. It'll put gold in your hand, and you can give that back to them."

"Baerag's told me enough about the mines. I don't want to go down that route unless there are no other options," I said. "Wait, hold on a minute. Gold in my hand, not theirs?"

Harritt shrugged.

"Only thralls work the mines," he said. "Folk sell the labour of their thralls to the mine captain, same as you might rent a mule for a day. It's customary to give a piece of the gold back to the thrall who earned it, though not everyone is inclined that way."

"But these aren't thralls. What about free men?" I asked.

"On the Iron Islands, free men are Ironborn. And Ironborn don't go digging their metal or their turnips out of the muck. Farming and mining is work for thralls, not free men. Least that's how it's seen around here."

Harritt scratched the side of his nose, and then dropped his hands to rest on his hips.

"We can talk the options through once they're all here," he said eventually. "With the way you've been talking, I figure you're wanting them to have some input in what happens."

"That's right," I said in immediate agreement.

"They're going to end up living the exact same life that a thrall would have, anyway," Harritt warned. "Except maybe they get this chance to choose where they want their labour to happen. Not much difference in it."

"Choice is the biggest difference you can make in a man's life," I told him. "The best way to make a difference is to give them their choices back."


	14. Chapter 14

The crowd of twenty obvious foreigners and half a dozen native Ironborn trailing behind me did draw some attention. Although people from all over the world mingled in this port town, our group was too big to slip through without being noticed at all.

It was fine. Nobody stopped us or questioned us, and I suspected the stray gazes we caught were just curiosity from the locals, not paid rats who would bring news of us back to Greyjoy.

"Did you find a place to keep your slaves?" asked Jhakho. He walked beside me at the head of the group, paying very little attention to the sights and sounds of Lordsport except to stare longingly at any horse which passed by. And even at some of the better groomed donkeys.

"None of these men are my slaves," I reminded him. "But yes, there's somewhere they can sleep for a few nights while we sort things out."

"Thralls, then," he replied dismissively. "They're the same thing."

"No, they're not," said Baerag firmly. I kept a watchful eye on the men trudging after us, but made sure to pay attention to what Baerag was saying. It was something I'd been meaning to ask him about, as well.

"Slaves get traded for gold like they're animals," he said. "There's no honour in owning a slave. A slave is just a man turned into a thing. Any coward with a bag of coins can purchase a slave. The only way to get a thrall is to win them in battle."

"To pay the iron price," added Harritt. "There's honour in it. A warrior steals a woman away in a raid, he's won her fairly. Same with servants, or any treasures a raider can carry away with him. Slaves are bought and paid for with coin. Thralls are earned with honour."

Jhakho sniffed, and reached out to brush the side of a palfrey as we passed it and the wagon it pulled on the road. He turned his head to follow its path back down the hill to Lordsport.

"It still ends with a man in chains," he said. "It's the same thing to that man."

"Thralls are more like servants than slaves, though," insisted Baerag. "There are laws forbidding the mistreatment of thralls, and anyone who keeps a thrall has a duty to care for them. You can't just steal someone and then throw them away when they're no longer useful. The commitment to serve goes both ways."

"I really don't think it's an even relationship," I said, unable to help myself.

"What relationship is?" asked Harritt. "The kinship between a lord and one of his smallfolk isn't so different. The greenlander peasantry toil in fields all day and give away half their harvest in tax. Give away their young men to muster for the lord's armies, and come home to burnt fields and empty houses. Thralls, at least, are protected on the Iron Islands."

"They're stolen away in a raid!" I said. "That's the exact opposite of being protected."

Harritt shrugged.

"They aren't thralls then, just greenlanders," he argued. "They're not thralls until you bring them back to the iron shores. But once they're here they're given a home, a livelihood, food and protection from any foreign lords and their roaming armies. Each thrall is kept by one Ironborn who is responsible for defending them. Who knows who they are and values their service. How many lords over on the mainland can even name one of their smallfolk?"

I nudged Baerag, who was looking uncomfortable at the direction of the conversation. It was personal for him, I supposed.

I wondered whether he felt the need to justify the abuses of thralldom in the same way that people justify beating their kids by saying that their parents used to hit them when they needed it, and it hadn't ever done them any harm. Spoiler alert: it made them grow up to want to hit children. That's the harm in a handbasket for you.

"Didn't you say that your parents were thralls?" I asked. He shifted uneasily, but then nodded.

"Children born to thralls are freed once they grow older," he said. "It's part of the tradition. The parents are won in battle, but their children aren't. So they're accepted as true Ironborn, because any free man born on Iron soil is one of us."

He gave me a sidelong look, and I felt a twinge of guilt at outing him in front of the others like that. It was public knowledge, but I imagined it had the potential to be a bit of a sore spot for him.

"What happens to the children of slaves?" he asked me.

"I'll assume that's a rhetorical question."

"But you take my point?" he urged. "Thralls might be bound into service, but aside from that, they're nothing like slaves. They're not free men, but they're not reduced to animals or possessions. They can marry. They can kill an Ironborn in self-defence and every man will agree they had the right. No free man is allowed to kill or seriously injure a thrall. It's part of our oldest laws."

"The tradition of taking thralls in raids stems from the First Men," added Harritt. "Our distant cousins in the North only gave up the practice when Aegon the Conqueror flew down on his dragon and demanded they stop."

"I don't have a dragon," I said. "But would I really need one to stop the Ironborn from stealing people out of their homes?"

Baerag looked worried, and out of the corner of my eye I could see him fidgeting with a loose thread on the end of his sleeve.

"The Greyjoy will take you freeing thralls as a personal insult," he said. "His life's work has been to undo Quellon's reforms. One of his father's reforms was outlawing the keeping of thralls - I told you this, but you don't understand!"

I clapped a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

"Don't worry, I've been listening to you when you speak," I assured him. He shook his head.

"He'll see this as you attempting to undermine his authority. Remember what happened that first night when you met him? He saw you as a threat and ordered you killed. Before you even said a word to him."

"And Damphair beside you," grumbled Harritt. "Kinslaying is a nasty business."

"Do you think he'd have actually gone through with it?" I asked. "Killing his own brother, I mean. Don't you think he might have intended to call the keepguard off once I was dead?"

"There's no telling with the Greyjoy," he replied. "He's not as treacherous as Crow's Eye, another of his brothers, but it's in his nature to attack anyone who so much as bares their teeth at him."

"You make him sound like a rabid dog," I suggested in amusement.

"No, Euron Crow's Eye is the rabid one," said Harritt grimly. "Balon's madness is much lesser. But it doesn't flare hot. It's cold. The cold cruelty of logic warped by paranoia and resentment."

"We should kill him," declared Jhakho, who had gone silent to listen in to our conversation. "Kill this Greyjoy lord and take his lands. Then you may order whichever laws suit your taste."

Baerag paled, and tried to hush the oblivious Dothraki. Luckily we were fairly far from the town by now, so even Jhakho's booming voice might have gone unheard.

"We'll probably have to, sooner or later," muttered Harritt. Baerag gave him a shocked look, whereas Jahkho just nodded in agreement.

"Go to your enemies before they come to you. It is the only way."

"No slaves. No thralls. No pre-emptive murders. I'm going to draw a line in the sand, and those three things are on the other side. We do not cross the line. Got it?" I asked.

Jhakho grumbled, but in a good-natured sort of way. Baerag looked impossibly relieved. Some colour trickled back into his cheeks and he no longer looked like a fish gasping in the air.

"It's a nice sentiment, but have you considered that you're just giving him the opportunity to pre-emptively murder you, instead?" asked Harritt.

"I'm not afraid of him killing me," I replied.

"I know you can hold your own in a fight, the Drowned God alone knows I've seen you swing that sunsteel of yours like you were born with it in your hand. But there are knives in the night. Arrows from thirty paces. Poison."

"He won't be able to hit me with knives or arrows, and I have my ways of dealing with poison," I explained. It wasn't cockiness. It was just a fact. If he launched some half-assed assassination attempt on me, I'd come out the other side just fine. Even if he whole-assed it, it wouldn't make a lick of difference. The gap between us was just too big.

-x-x-

It took an awfully long time to get everyone sitting down quietly and listening to what I had to say. The language barrier was the biggest problem. I'd appointed a couple of translators, but their Common wasn't particularly good, so we were faced with constant interruptions.

Eventually we managed to divide the outlanders into three main groups; men with a trade, unskilled labourers, and people who wanted to go home to Essos.

Only a few of the men chose to return to Essos. They were suspicious about my motives, and I couldn't help but wonder how many more would have taken me up on the offer if they knew I was sincere.

It couldn't be helped.

I sent them off with Harritt and a bag of gold. It was his gold, too. Bless that man for being willing to volunteer it for the cause. I figured it was best to split the group as quickly as possible to make the crowd easier to manage. Harritt would find them a ship travelling to their city of choice and pay off the captain.

I asked him to give a few coins to the men as well. He grumbled, but saw the sense in it. There was no sense in letting a man go home if he'd starve to death on his first day in his home port.

The next group were the craftsmen. The misplaced tradesmen and apprentices. I asked Harritt to look after that group, given his connections through his cousin the glassblower. He set to work interrogating them about the skills they possessed. They were surly and uncommunicative, which wasn't helped by the chain of translation that any questions had to go through. Thankfully Jhakho had already begun the questioning back on the ship, and was able to furnish the grumbled statements of the men with additional details.

Eleven men remained. These were men of no particular skillset. Labourers and workers before their life at an oar, perhaps. Or maybe just lifelong slaves. The only skill they possessed in all the world was the strength of their arms.

It was to be the farms or the mines for this lot. The third route for unskilled thralls would be as servants, but I didn't know anyone of particular status in the Iron Islands who wasn't a Greyjoy. Well, except Andrik, but he had no desire to take on another thrall.

Andrik did, however, own a fair sized swathe of land on Old Wyk which wasn't being used for anything except to graze his sheep. It wasn't particularly great quality land for growing things in, being covered in a thin, stony soil. That made it about average for farms on the Iron Islands, so it would be sufficient for our purposes. He'd agreed to allow some of these freed slaves to farm his land in exchange for a consideration in the form of either rent or crops. The land was barely being used at the moment, so this was to his benefit.

I floated the idea of him just giving the land to them, but his generosity didn't extend quite that far. Shame, but I couldn't say I'd expected something different.

In the interests of diplomacy, I asked them what they wanted to do. This whole ordeal was about giving condemned men a choice, right? Besides, it's not like anyone would actually choose to go down a mine when they could grow potatoes.

Three of them must have suffered head injuries, because they chose to volunteer for work in the mines.

I groaned in disgust.

"But why would you want to go down a mine?" I asked in exasperation. I wouldn't forbid them the choice, but I was sorely tempted to talk them out of it. Working down a mine in a place with this level of technology was not going to help anyone live for long.

"More gold than farming," Jhakho explained after relaying my question. "And Varan says he worked on a farm before and hated it. Doesn't want to scrabble about in the mud again."

"Mining is just scrabbling about in the mud!" I exclaimed. Jhakho shrugged, and looked at Varan expectantly. The wannabe miner began gabbling his response before Jhakho had finished translating my words.

"Different kind of mud," said Jhakho. "Not covered in rain or full of pigshit."

I guess I can understand not wanting to deal with pigshit, at least. It still seemed like a stupid choice to me, but Varan was entitled to make up his own mind. I sighed, and clapped my hands together for attention.

"Alright!" I called out. "We're beginning to get an idea where everyone is going to work. Some of you will end up living at your places of work - there are some empty cottages on the farmland we've got set aside, and there's a dormitory at the stonecutter's yard. Everyone else can stay here for a few days until we've got something ready for you."

A few heads looked up, and then others turned to their fellows to converse in their own language.

I stood up, straightening my shoulders with a crack.

This wasn't an elegant solution to the problem of what to do with all these people, but it'd do. I still needed to find homes for the others, and handle the logistics of convincing local craftsmen to go along with my scheme and hire this lot, but this was a strong beginning.

The longhall had been the site of a party the night before, but it wouldn't be overkill to celebrate again today.

Maybe a more modest celebration since most of the guests were in such poor shape, but I gave a few orders and soon enough some casks of ale were rolling through the door and the hearty smell of beef began simmering out of the cast iron pots suspended over the firepit.

-x-x-

The next day, we set to work building the empty space before the longhouse into a training yard. The noise of rudimentary industry punctuated our labour; howls and bangs from hammer and forge, the shouting of Leith at his workers, and the occasional smash of dropped glass.

I modelled our training ground after the set-up we had used at Camp Half-Blood. It was considerably smaller, to be sure, but at least we had somewhere inside to eat when it rained. Archery targets marked one boundary, and a row of wooden pells sat at the other.

Baerag struck a pell with his sword. It was a heavy post, as tall as he was and nearly two-thirds of a foot in diameter. He frowned, and tugged his sword out of the narrow wedge he had cut into.

"Do you really think that play-acting with a log will be good training?" he asked doubtfully. "It seems like it would be much better just to train against each other."

I reached into the crate by my side, pulling out a wooden sword. It was designed to be awkward and cumbersome to a mortal's grip, but with my increased strength I was able to heft it easily. I tossed it through the air and Baerag reached out to catch it.

He swore, and it fell out of his hands. He nursed his fingers with a wince, and then went to pick it up with his other hand,

"This is heavy!" he exclaimed. "Only made out of wood, but it weighs more than a real sword should. This won't be realistic training at all."

"You're going to be fighting a bit of wood," I said. "How realistic were you expecting it to be? This will help you build up strength in your upper body and get the basics down. You're not wrong, though. We'll need to supplement this with sparring to help you refine the technique."

Baerag looked at me, still clearly not convinced.

"Andrik, is this how you learned to fight?" he asked the older warrior, who had been digging a pit to bury the next pell in. Andrik looked up and studied Baerag grimly.

"My da beat the shit out of me every day until I learned to get out the way," he said flatly. "Trust me. You'll enjoy this more."

Bearag took up a fighting stance opposite a training post and made a overhead swip down at the side of it. The sword rattled loosely in his hand, threatening to bounce free from his loose grip. He struck the post high, where a man's shoulder would be, and took so long about bringing his sword down that any real opponent could have gotten out of the way, disarmed him, and taken his mother out for a nice seafood dinner before the blow landed.

Andrik stabbed his shovel into the ground and put his hands on his hips. He tutted in a strangely motherly fashion for a gigantic pirate viking, and strolled over to Baerag.

Baerag grunted in pain as Andrik cuffed him on the back of the head. He swayed slightly on his feet and glared up at Andrik.

"Stop squalling about your training just because you don't feel like doing it, lad," he said.

"I'm not refusing to do my work, I just don't see how this is going to be useful," objected Baerag.

"Hitting things with swords makes you better at hitting things with swords. Heavy practice swords help you hit harder. Longer practice helps you hit for longer." Andrik stopped speaking, and glared right back at Baerag for a moment. "What does no practice get you?"

He hit Baerag again.

And again.

"Can you tell," he asked, slapping Baerag once more. Baerag tried to step away but Andrik drew his sword and whacked him on the head with the pommel. "Which one of us has trained longer?"

"Okay, I get your point," grumbled Baerag, holding up the wooden sword feebly to fend off Andrik's sword. Andrik didn't stop advancing, so in desperation Baerag swung it at him to push him back.

The sword impacted the side of Andrik's arm. He had removed his thick leather jerkin to work in just a shirt, but barely even twitched at the hit. He just raised an eyebrow, watched Baerag's face pale, and then raised his sword.

"Don't fight me," he instructed. "Fight your opponent." He gestured with the tip of his sword at the training pell.

Baerag turned and smashed his sword into the training post. It was a swift and brutal attack compared to his lazy swipe from earlier. I nodded in approval. It wouldn't be enough to take down a minotaur, but it'd be good enough against a greenlander soldier.

Or one of Balon Greyjoy's thugs.

He continued to attack the pell for some time, occasionally correcting a stance or changing the angle of attack under Andrik's direction. I took a break from setting up racks of training swords to watch them.

He wasn't bad, for a mortal.

Andrik's guidance was pretty spot on, as well. He was a bit more gruff than Chiron had been, and more inclined to use the back of his hand as a corrective measure, but his advice was always correct. He was a bit more violent in his instruction than I would like, if I was honest, but he only used his fists to interrupt Baerag and draw his attention, never to punish or abuse, so I let it slide.

Even if I wasn't completely comfortable with it, it wouldn't achieve anything to mess with Andrik's teaching style. I could see firsthand that it was working, and Baerag was beginning to improve under his direction.

Still, I made a note to monitor him closely when training the other men - not everyone would respond well to such an aggressive method of discipline. Others might need gentler encouragement, to be coaxed into improvements. Perhaps the savage upbringing of an Ironborn would dissuade the locals from developing gentler dispositions, but I didn't want to snuff out the spirit of any potential warriors who were a little less robust than others.

With a careful touch, those men could still be worthwhile in battle.

A wagon rolled up to join us soon after, laden with crates and boxes. Jhakho immediately leapt out of the driver's seat, and set to fussing over the donkey. He released it from the harness as quickly as he could, rubbing down the sore spots where the wood and leather had been chafing against its hide.

He muttered something under his breath to the creature, and it was the first time I'd ever heard his native Dothraki speech sound gentle. The donkey flicked an ear in annoyance and pushed him away with the side of its head.

The animal huffed, and I crept closer to hear what it was saying.

"Stupid human, won't leave me alone," it grumbled. "I'm not a hound. Won't do tricks for a bone. Stop touching my ears if you want to have foals. I'll kick your grapes into raisins, just see if I won't."

I was about to warn Jhakho to back off when he pulled a withered old apple out of his pocket. The donkey's nostrils flared, and it nearly took his fingers off when it bit into the fruit.

"Stupid human knows his place," it muttered between bites. "I'll allow it for now." It scuffed a hoof against the dirt path, and moved a couple of steps, pushing its bony withers against Jhakho's chest. It was either a gesture of affection or shoving him away. By the beaming smile which broke out on Jhakho's face, I know which he was interpreting it as. I had my doubts, but didn't want to burst his bubble.

"Bloodrider!" I called out. Jhakho's head shot up with immediate attention, and he stopped bothering the donkey to come see me.

"What does my khal need?" he asked. I yanked a training sword off its peg and held it out to him, hilt-first.

"You're used to fighting with an arakh?" I asked. He shrugged with one shoulder, and flashed me a fierce grin.

"I'm used to fighting," he said. "Don't worry about the details."

"Good," I said. "Andrik, new student. You're up."

The greatest of the Ironborn versus a malnourished and weakened Dothraki. It was an interesting match-up. I was curious to see how the two disparate cultures would do against each other. Jhakho had talked up the abilities of the Dothraki's warrior nation a storm, but I'd watched Andrik fight first-hand.

He came storming over the length of the ground with live steel in his hand. He roared in excitement, and thrust his blade to a point beneath Jhakho's ribs.

The Dothraki howled in glee and danced out of the way, light on his feet and swinging around to attack Andrik from behind. His beard swung in the air, beads glinting in the sunlight as he moved. His sword was low to the ground, and almost impacted the back of Andrik's leg.

I noticed that Jhakho had a tendency to reach down, sweeping at his opponent's legs and ankles. I wondered if that was an accidental habit ingrained from years of fighting on horseback, or just how the Dothraki fought.

The bout went on for a few minutes, and the difference between the two was readily apparent. Jhakho danced on his feet like a boxer, moving around Andrik with rapid slashes of his blade and leaping to and fro to avoid the larger man's sword. Andrik stood almost still as a statue, catching attacks with his sword as often as he moved out of the way. His movements were deliberate, minimalistic, with no wasted effort.

Jhakho might have been victorious against an equal opponent, but Andrik was too much larger, too much stronger, and had too much stamina. He couldn't keep up his agile pattern of attack for long, and soon his movements began to lag.

Andrik sheathed his sword and punched Jhakho square in the chest. Jhakho stumbled back a pace, and then fell into the mud torn up by their spar.

He rolled onto his feet with a cry and was about to leap back into the fray when I stepped between them.

"Enough!" I shouted. "That'll do for now."

Jhakho threw his sword at me. I caught it by the dull blade, and gave him a wolf stare. He wilted under the fierceness of the look Lupa had taught me during my time with the Roman Legion, and turned his face away from me.

"You're fast and control an unfamiliar weapon well," I complimented. "But the way you fight takes too much energy. You can't keep it up for long, especially with all the stamina you've lost while chained down in that ship."

"Give me a turn of the moon and red meat to fill my belly," he promised. "I'll be your finest warrior."

Andrik snorted, and shook his head.

"Second finest," he said.

"Ladies, please!" I called out. "Let's not fight over who's the prettiest." I paused, and looked from one to the other, making eye contact and waiting for them to stop bitching. "It's obviously going to be me."

-x-x-

The next few days passed in a similar fashion. Andrik took command of the training grounds and began to whip the men into shape. We had twenty fighting men, and nearly half of them were seasoned Ironborn. The others had a long way to come, but were already making progress.

It was a good start.

I'd shipped away some of the freed slaves by now. Everyone who wanted to return to Essos was on a ship or drinking themselves blind while waiting for departure. The farmhands were on Old Wyk, settling into their huts, and six of them were getting acquainted with a dormitory by the stonecutter's yard down in Lordsport.

I was sitting in my longhall with a cup of bad beer and a plate of excellent bread when the door burst open.

"A black sail has been sighted!" cried out Damphair, framing the doorway with a tangled mass of seaweed-braided hair. "My niece has returned to us."

I sighed.

"Sit down, Damphair," I said. "Stop being so dramatic and come have a drink with us."

He turned his nose up at the beer, asking instead for water. And then he turned his nose up at the bread.

"Won't you have a little to eat?" pleaded Baerag. "You haven't eaten anything today, have you? I can tell. Captain Greyjoy made me promise to keep an eye on you. Won't you have a little of this smoked fish, at least?"

Damphair sat down beside me, pushing the plate away.

"Gluttony is the crutch of soft men," he reprimanded. "No soft man can be close to the god of the sea. By going without the comforts of warm food and drink, I become closer to the Drowned God." He looked down at Baerag, almost a scowl, and the younger man cringed back from the fierceness of his gaze. "You should eat less if you still have aspirations of becoming a Drowned Man. Perhaps that is the reason why the words of my histories fall out of your mind; it is overfull already with thoughts of bread and beef."

Baerag looked at his plate guiltily, and then pushed it away in a mirror of Damphair's earlier action.

I grabbed it and shoved it right back at him, nearly knocking it off the table. I then did the same with the plate of smoked fish Baerag had placed in front of Damphair.

"How do you expect to build muscle without food to help it grow?" I asked him. "Don't put all your efforts to waste by starving yourself. And you, priest. I hate to break it to you, but no matter how much you work on your figure, Dad isn't going to find you any more attractive. You're just not his type."

"Asha has returned," repeated Damphair when he was done sulking. "She will surely tell my brother of all that has transpired while you were away."

"It was going to happen sooner or later," I replied. "He probably knows that I'm back by now, and that I brought some new friends back home with me."

Damphair nodded, took a bite of his fish, and grimaced like he was going to spit it out.

"This has been seasoned too much," he complained. "It tastes like spice and herbs, not the sea."

I rolled my eyes.

"What could he do, anyway?" I asked. "He gives a lot of lip service to following the Old Way, but he won't be able to recapture the men I've freed as thralls. Thralls can only be taken in battle, and the Ironborn haven't raided each other's islands for hundreds of years. Slipping back to that practice isn't going to win him any friends from the other lords."

"He'll most likely claim that you stole those thralls as the rightful property of the rest of his daughter's crew," suggested Baerag, and Damphair nodded.

"There's no penalty for freeing a thrall, but every child knows the consequences of theft. On the first offence, a man might choose between losing a hand or taking the black. On the second, death."

"How many thralls did you free, Percy?" asked Baerag quietly.

"Twenty three," I said. "That's fine. Our crew has more than that many men, and they all have both hands. We've got a surplus of hands. I see no reason for concern."

"Knowing my brother, I expect he'll insist on one hand and twenty two deaths instead," said Damphair. He took a bite of fish and swallowed. "Maybe just the one death, if he's feeling generous. He's not known to be."


	15. Chapter 15

"This is as far as I can take you," said Damphair. A bedraggled and unstable rope bridge swung in front of us, reaching across the yawning chasm above the sea between the Great Keep and the Sea Tower. The Sea Tower rose on a narrow stack of rock barely wider than the tower itself. It was the outermost stack of the collection of barren rock on which Pyke Keep was built, and rose higher than any of the other keeps.

"Afraid of the drop?" I teased. "Don't worry, I'll catch you with the sea if you fall. Nobody dies at sea while I'm watching."

Damphair shook his head grimly. Seaweed swung about his head as it moved, spattering me with a few drops of seawater. I wiped it away with my shirt sleeve.

Looks like someone had been freshening himself up this morning. I wish his bath routine involved a bar of soap instead of seaweed, but he'd experienced a moment of selective deafness when I brought the topic up.

"Balon's summons were for you alone," he said. "He awaits you in his study. I can accompany you if you wish, but it will lessen you in his eyes. He chose to meet you in the tower alone, rather than in his hall with guards around him. Do you wish to appear less of a man than him?"

"I'm sure I can find my way without you," I replied. The rope bridge swayed alarmingly when I stepped on it. I hesitated for a moment, and then laughed.

"I guess it's not a big deal if I fall, right?" I said. "I might feel a little embarrassed, but there's no way I'd be hurt." I took my next step, and although the bridge swayed again, it held fast under my weight. "If Greyjoy crosses this bridge a dozen times a day, I'm sure it can hold me."

The length of the tower was sheer and crooked, painted in a range of colours by the weathering of the sea. It began washed white from centuries of sea spray, through a band of green mildew and moss, until finally the top of the tower hung black like an omen against the sky. It had been burned away in a fire years ago, and only partially repaired.

Nobody was insane enough to use the tower except for Balon Greyjoy, who had his study housed in the uppermost of the rooms, the eyrie of the tower itself. In order to reach it, I climbed a newly installed set of stairs through several levels of blackened char.

The lower floors were usable, but abandoned. I imagined the rope bridge put off most of the people who could have done anything in those rooms.

Balon's preferences likely went towards privacy as well.

I reached his solar in the apex of the tower. His door was closed shut, a wretched old thing of splintery wood decorated with iron studs. A hefty knocker, also made from iron, hung from it in the shape of a kraken. I reached up to take it in my hand, and then paused.

Nah.

I pushed the door open and strode in, unannounced and unapologetic.

"You were asking for me?"

Balon Greyjoy stood on the other side of his desk. He was tall, and good-looking in a harsh sort of way. Now that I was looking for it, he resembled Asha a great deal. Damphair not so much, but the priest was drowned in the tangle of hair and beard, so his face was too hidden to spot the shapes of jaw and cheekbones which were common to the other Greyjoys.

He stood, placing his hands flat on the desk to push himself out of his chair, and walked over to the brazier which was the sole source of warmth in the damp and drafty tower room. The fire had burned down almost to embers, and gave off almost no actual heat.

Although we were very high above sea level, the walls were slick with moisture. I could see patches of black mould against the pale grey timbers. There were no books in the room, and the only papers were sea charts held in the same wax-stoppered tubes used to store them while at sea. The precaution would be necessary in a room so dismal as this, otherwise they'd rot clean away.

There was a stack of coal at the base of the wrought-iron brazier. Greyjoy gathered up a handful and dropped it into the fire.

"I wouldn't want you to get cold up here," he said, and turned to me with a sneer. "I expect you aren't used to the chill of the sea air like we are."

"I'm fine," I said. "Thanks for the concern."

He took his seat once more, and picked up a scrap of parchment which was buried under a brass sextant. He held it up to his eyes, then looked back at me.

"Varan of Myr. Dolwyn of Myr. Harcott of no particular nation. These are your thralls, yes?" he asked, giving me a pointed look. He placed the parchment down, and then folded his hands in his lap. "They are all dead."

My sword was in my hand before I knew it. I heard a rushing in my ears, and my blood felt hot in my wrists and throat. There was a sudden pain in my thigh as I crashed into the outer edge of Balon's desk, and I realised with a start that I'd already crossed the distance to him.

He waved my sword away dismissively.

"Have you forgotten that we broke bread together?" he asked. "Such poor manners from a guest."

I felt a tug behind my navel, and grunted as my insides twisted. I let go of Anaklusmos. My sword bounced off the desk with a thud, then disappeared into the air. I winced involuntarily, feeling a chill in my fingers.

Balon's face twisted in an unpleasant leer.

"Ah, so Lodos remembers his manners after all," he said.

I glared at him, and gripped the edge of the desk. The wood creaked under my fingers, and the pressure in my stomach lessened.

"What did you do?" I growled.

"Why, nothing at all," he said. "Mining is a very dangerous business. Especially for inexperienced thralls with an attitude problem. They ignored the instructions from their foreman and went digging somewhere they shouldn't."

"And you had them killed for that?" I demanded. "If you've hurt one of my people, I'll-"

Balon raised a hand, and I bit off my protest. His eyes glimmered with malice, and I saw him reach under the desk. For a weapon? I hoped so. If he went for his sword, I'd be justified in going for mine, bread and salt be damned.

"No steel of mine broke their skin," he said coolly. "There was an accident in the mines. Lord Gorold Goodbrother has lost many of his thralls, and a number of smallfolk besides. One of the caves beneath Hammerhorn lay too close to an underground stream. Goodbrother had a culvert built to lead the waters away, but it seems to have failed. Many men have died."

If I'm honest with myself, I didn't believe him. Oh, I believed that the men I'd allowed to go off to the mines were dead, but I didn't buy his innocent act for a moment.

"You have caused these innocent men to die, but you may yet redeem yourself, Lodos," he drawled. I narrowed my eyes. Oh, this was going to be good. Was he going to demand my head in recompense for the drowned men?

"What are you on about?" I demanded. "I had no part in this."

"As a son of the Drowned God should know," Balon began, his look of condescension never leaving his face. "When a man dies, we must bury him at sea so that his soul may find its way back to the watery halls of our great god."

I thought back to the scene I had witnessed in my peculiar weirwood dream, of a kraken devouring the lost soul of a man outside a vats hall decorated with a motif of mythical sea creatures.

"Being trapped beneath the earth, never able to find their way to open water - it's a terrible fate for any man of the Iron Isles," he continued. "To be drowned in freshwater enclosed by rock, forever separated from the god's embrace? It's a curse upon the land. The Goodbrother is a godly man, and rightly fears the consequences of so many suffering an unjust fate beneath his home. He has made a request of me as his liege lord, and I am inclined to grant it."

Greyjoy looked at me, steely eyes like gimlets, and folded his arms. He tilted his chin up so that he was looking slightly down his nose at me even though we were the same height.

"You will travel to the Hardstone Hills of Great Wyk," he instructed. "You claim to be the Drowned God's kin? This is your chance to prove it. Go to the mines beneath Hammerhorn and set to peace the souls of the unquiet dead."

-x-x-

As expected, everyone was a little bitch about me going away for five minutes.

"But Percy, what if it's a trap?" protested Baerag. "You can't go alone. You need someone to watch your back."

Yeah, no shit it's a trap. Unless you think Balon Greyjoy genuinely believes I can swoop in and save the souls of trapped miners. Wait, scrap that thought. He's a nutjob. He might believe that. But no way does he care about the afterlife of thralls and peasants.

And what, you'll change the odds of me surviving an encounter with pirates in a mine? Thanks but no thanks, Baerag. I supposed that I shouldn't be so dismissive. He meant well. He was only trying to help. I couldn't help but be frustrated by the attempts to baby me, though. Surely he, of all people, had an idea of what I was capable of.

"He has a point, Lodos," said Damphair.

"Hmm," grunted Andrik. Harritt nodded silently.

"My brother is cunning and swift to seek retribution for perceived slights. You may be right to think that he had a hand in these deaths, but what's done is done. Don't throw away your own life on a foolhardy investigation."

I groaned, and sat down on a bench. The longhall began to feel stuffy and crowded, even though there were only five of us on this side of the room, and barely twice that made up from the freed slaves loitering towards the other end. We'd found places for half their number, but it was taking more time than I'd hoped to make arrangements for the rest.

"Come on," I urged. "Do you really think that anyone Greyjoy throws at me could possibly do me any harm? Seriously?"

It was almost insulting that my own crew thought that a mortal stood a chance of taking me down. Well, they'd learn sooner or later.

Harritt cleared his throat.

"There's another reason why you shouldn't go by yourself to Great Wyk," he said. "We've made some headway in training our crew to fight, but there's another skill every Ironborn raider needs to possess. They need to be able to row."

Andrik nodded.

"Yes, this is a good opportunity to break the lads in. Great Wyk is just a half-day trip. Better to have a reason for a journey than just row lengths of a beach over and over for practice."

I considered it. I was reluctant to bring the new blood with me into what seemed like an obvious trap, but it was hard to argue with Andrik's logic.

"No further than the beach," I said, deciding to choose my battles. "The men can row for me, but I'm going to Hammerhorn alone. The best way to catch the man who set a trap is to spring it. Greyjoy could try to divide my attention by forcing me to look after my crew in battle. I can survive anything he could try, but I can't guarantee that I can protect you all if things go south."

"You'll have a ship waiting for you to finish your business," promised Andrik, and we were agreed.

"Harritt, I want you to stay behind and keep an eye on the freedmen," I said. "They'll be no trouble, but they hardly speak a word of Common between them. Best to have someone local stick around, just in case."

-x-x-

The Antelope was a poor substitute for a proper Ironborn longship, and the teething problems of a juvenile crew made it a tedious and painful journey. I was sorely tempted to flex my divine muscles and carry the ship myself, but I managed to resist the urge for the sake of my crew.

They had to learn, and my constant interference wouldn't help them.

After an hour or so of fighting each other and a number of arguments over who was responsible for messing up the tempo of the oars, we had settled into a steady pattern of push and pull.

It wasn't smooth for long, but once we'd achieved harmony once, we found it easier to slip back into.

Eventually we crossed the narrow strait of Ironman's Bay to land on Great Wyk. Finding a safe harbour among the high cliffs which characterised much of the Iron Islands' coastline was difficult, but Andrik managed to guide us into one.

I guess he'd become an unofficial bosun. It made sense; he was probably the most experienced of the Ironborn aboard after Harritt. And unlike Harritt, who was a seasoned unknown, Andrik was lauded throughout the islands as a modern legend among raiders. Of my crew, all those who hadn't signed on to fight beside me had done so to fight beside Andrik.

He wanted to come with me, but I refused, citing the need for someone to supervise the crew until my return. None of them were willing to let me go alone, so I reluctantly accepted Baerag's company.

Having a mortal along slowed the pace of my travel, and we didn't reach Hammerhorn until the next day.

Hammerhorn was a squat, square castle. Unlike Pyke which sprawled out in crumbling towers and bridges, Hammerhorn was sturdy. It was built almost like a ziggurat. Walls reached up in receding layers, topped by spiky iron battlements and square towers. They appeared to be topped with thin lines of red. I thought it was a layer of decorative brick atop the stone at first, but as I grew closer I saw that it was just a series of iron rods set into the brick, stained red with rust.

None of the towers were even as high as the cliff it was built into. The stone was the exact same colour, and would have blended right into the mountainside if not for the harsh, unnatural angles of its squareness.

All in all, it was a profoundly ugly piece of architecture. At least Pyke had the novelty of how it managed to stay standing. Hammerhorn was just an angular toad squatting on the edge of the Hardstone Hills.

Above the castle, blue-green soldier pines sparsely decorated the mountain. The blue tinted leaves had an unearthly pallor, as you might expect a tree in Poseidon's halls might appear.

We entered the courtyard to find a number of men waiting for us. One wall of the courtyard was taken up by a wide wooden arch which led to a dark tunnel carved straight into the cliffside. This was the mine in question, I presumed.

A number of dirty peasants were clustered in the shadows of the tunnel, some clutching tools, others holding unlit lanterns.

On the other side of the courtyard, at the foot of the central castle, a man stood with a black velvet jerkin lined with silver thread. He stood beside a maester in homespun brownple robes with a small chain hung around his neck. Three identical young men hovered behind them, dressed as finely as their father but not quite as at ease in the garments. One in particular kept twitching for a weapon which wasn't there, and another wasn't able to stop himself from tugging at the fraying threads of his cuff.

The lord nodded to his maester as we approached.

"Very good, Murenmure," he said. "This must be our man. Send the raven at once."

"Yes, my lord," replied the maester, ducking his head and scurrying back into the castle.

"You must be Percy Jackson," the lord said, and strode forwards to meet us. I felt a rush of glee at the sound of my own name, and met his handshake with enthusiasm. Yes, I am Percy Jackson. Thank you for noticing, finally.

"Lord Gorold Goodbrother, I take it?" I said, responding in kind. He inclined his head in agreement, and then gestured at the triplets lurking at his elbow.

"These are my sons. Gormond, Gran, and my eldest and heir, Greydon."

I looked at them suspiciously. I was pretty certain they were all the same age. Even brothers didn't look that alike unless they were twins. Triplets. Whatever. Clones, probably.

"What happened here?" I asked, cutting right to the chase. Gorold seemed pleasant enough, but I wasn't here to play nice. I was here chasing rumours that someone I was responsible for had been killed.

Goodbrother scowled, and beckoned one of the smallfolk over.

"As you told me," he instructed.

"Like I said milord, someone musta been digging in the wrong place. We blocked out a culvert to keep the river away from the dig site, and it held for years with no trouble 'cept the odd leak during heavy storms. The whole thing came crashing apart, like someone had taken a pickaxe to it. My brothers, and me goodson, they're all down there now. Trapped, like."

"And you want me to go through the flooded section to get them out?" I asked, squinting into the darkness. It would be an unpleasant task, but if there was anyone who stood a chance of navigating a flooded tunnel to look for survivors, it was me.

The man shook his head.

"Nay, milord. Nobody could have survived a flood like that. Every man who you don't see here was below the water level. It woulda carried them down into the dark and filled up whatever hole they're stuck in. It's been days in there, with the icy water and the foulness of the mine air. They're lost to us in this life, for sure."

Gorold stepped forwards, and he clasped his hands together tightly in front of his stomach.

"This is why I sent word to Lord Greyjoy," he said. "I owe my smallfolk a consideration for their service in my mines. Their lives were spent to bring me iron and tin, and I appreciate their labour." He sighed, and looked at the tunnel entrance. "Drowning in the dark is poor recompense for their work, but it is the only end they have left. In this life."

"We've all heard about you, m'lord. Uh, m'Lodos," the miner said. I cringed at the absurd title, but didn't interrupt him to correct him. My name is Percy, damn you all. "What you done on Pyke. Down in the greenlands. The stories are going' round, and it got us all thinking. My brothers are all caught in the mines. Their souls are locked away down there, surrounded by rock. They drowned, but not rightly, not in the sea. So I was wondering if you could help guide them to the Drowned God's halls in the next life. Spare them from the torment of wandering lost for eternity in the dark under the earth."

"I do not wish to live in a haunted castle," said one of Goodbrother's sons primly. His brothers elbowed him in the gut and shushed him quickly.

Gorold Goodbrother gave his sons a stern look, then shrugged.

"You have the truth of it, Lord Jackson," he said. "I asked the Greyjoy to send Damphair to us to offer a blessing, but he chose to send you instead. Can you aid my people, and prevent a curse of buried souls from falling on my family?"

In the entrance to the mine, I saw that one of the lanterns was lit. The flame within burned a pale green. I stared, and walked over. The miner holding the lantern looked up at me.

His skin was pale and waxy. I reached up to touch his cheek, and felt only ice where our skin met.

The lantern flame didn't crackle. Instead, I could hear whispering coming from it, from beyond it. The voices sounded familiar. I could hear Jason, Annabeth, Dad and Mom and Nico and Thalia. I heard others. Voices of people alive and dead. Everyone I had ever watched die and everyone I had ever feared might die and leave me.

"This is superstitious nonsense," complained one of the other sons. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"I beg to differ," I said quietly, and followed the ghost into the mine.

"What?" exclaimed Gorold. "Who is that man?"

I looked back at him, and smiled without humour.

"This is Varan of Myr, my Lord Goodbrother," I said. "I freed him from a slave ship and he chose to come work in your mines. He liked your gold better than standing kneedeep in pigshit."

"He wasn't there before," Goodbrother replied. "I swear to you, that man wasn't in the courtyard before you arrived."

I shrugged. Maybe the ghost only had the strength to manifest itself in my presence, and not around vanilla mortals? There were no real hard and fast rules I could understand for how ghosts worked. All the various Olympians seemed able to call upon the ghosts of people who had died in their particular domains, yet Hades held dominion over all of the dead.

I wasn't Nico. I didn't know how this worked. I'd just met a ghost occasionally, which wasn't the same thing at all.

"He's never met you," I suggested. "He was probably waiting for me to come here before he showed himself."

"Why didn't we see any of the ghosts of the other miners, then?" challenged Goodbrother's disbelieving son. I snorted, and gave him a level look.

"You summoned me here to deal with your ghost problem, and now you're upset because there are actually ghosts?" I asked, voice thick with sarcasm. "I'm sorry to have complied in such an inconvenient way for you."

I followed Varan onwards, not stopping to see if anyone was following me. Baerag remained by my side, a constant presence even in the darkness, but the local lords and miners lagged behind in the courtyard.

The corpselight stretched further than a normal lantern would, illuminating the cavern with an eerie blue-green. The light flickered, but not like fire does. More like moonlight glinting off the peaks and troughs of waves. It shimmered on the walls and floor, until eventually we reached the water's edge.

The tunnel wall was curved inwards under the pressure of water. I could see a thick gouge where it had carved a path through, although the level was now much shallower with only a stream trickling by our feet.

I heard footsteps behind me. Gorold and two of his sons had finally followed me in, along with a few of their miners. Their faces were lit oddly in the corpselight, making them seem almost like corpses themselves.

"I think this is the end of the road for you," I said to them all, taking off my shirt and shoes. "Where I'm going next, you won't be able to follow."

Baerag began to unbuckle his boots.

"Don't be an idiot," I told him. He shook his head.

"I'm coming with you into the water," he insisted.

"How deep can you swim?" I asked. "How long can you hold your breath?"

"I'm Ironborn!"

Ugh. You know what? Fine. Nature would sort itself out soon enough. Mortals weren't equipped to breathe underwater.

I waded into the flooded section of the tunnel. I could hear the whispering of dead voices more loudly now, a chorus of lost souls. They no longer sounded like people I knew from back home. Now they had the rough accents of Ironborn. They sounded like the people I knew from right here in the Iron Islands.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the voices. They were coming from every direction at once, impossible to pinpoint. I dove into the water, and they changed.

The senses of my underwater self were different. I could see heat and feel sound. Infrared, sonar, these were all pale shades of what I could see and feel.

I could also reach into the realm of spirit and feel the tug of drowned men pull me down.

Varan's corpse floated beside me, illuminated by his impossible lantern which blazed away even more fiercely now that it was underwater.

I swam down into the deepest parts of the mine, following the sound of whispers. I felt them like an itch beneath my skin, something impossible to scratch yet too furious to ignore.

The currents of water in the mine were completely unlike those in the sea. The sea followed natural channels, paths of resistance and ease, hot and cold water pushing against one another and forming into natural, elegant patterns. The mine had just one rule. Everything led down. I pushed onwards, not even pausing when I sensed as much as heard Baerag begin to choke and splutter.

He had done well to follow me this deep, but didn't stand a chance of making his way back up to the surface. It was difficult enough to orient yourself in open water, let alone while in a flooded tunnel.

I gathered him up in a fist of my power, and tossed him back out onto dry land.

Without the distraction of Baerag struggling to keep pace with me, I was able to focus more clearly. The honeycomb of submerged tunnels which made up the mining complex began to form in my mind as a fully three-dimensional map. I could see them as if they were a holograph in front of me, points clearly labelled here and there where the bodies had fallen.

I reached the first group of bodies, and the ghosts of drowned miners were clustered around them.

Varan knelt down, and picked up his own corpse. He handed it to me with a solemn expression.

Gee, thanks. I always wanted one of these.

I gathered my power in a knot of water around us, and let the body float out of my arms. I sent it up to the surface as I had done with Baerag, carefully guiding it so the body didn't crash into any of the exposed rock.

I repeated the process until all the bodies were out of the water, and then headed deeper to reach the next ones.

And again.

With every group of ghosts and bodies, my anger grew.

I couldn't be certain that this was a deliberate act. Perhaps Balon was telling the truth, and this had just been a terrible accident. But the coincidence was too much for me to consider for long.

This was murder.

Mass murder. To spite me. And not only had he taken the life of the three men I'd set free, he'd killed dozens of innocents to get to them. Thralls, yes, but also free smallfolk living and working on Great Wyk.

I wondered what Lord Goodbrother would think if he knew his liege lord was behind this.

Eventually I was out of the mine. I walked up, out into the courtyard, dragging the corpses behind me on a raft of water. It didn't take much effort, but I felt tired, so tired of the sight of men who had died for no good reason at all.

When I got back to Pyke, Greyjoy and I were going to have words.

Baerag shuddered and stepped away at the sight of death floating behind me. I gave him the closest thing to a smile I could approximate in my current state of mind.

Goodbrother swore, and came over to me. He reached out to touch me, then faltered, and let his hand drop into the empty air between us.

"God's last breath," he cursed. "I thought you were going down to say a few words to the water where they drowned, not this!"

The ghosts of the miners clustered all around us, although Goodbrother seemed oblivious to them. I reached deep inside me, willing him to see what I could.

There was a tug behind my navel. A rushing in my ears. Bells. A gull cried overhead, and then every man flinched at once.

"Perseus Lodos shelter me," whispered Baerag, grasping the hilt of his sword. He leapt to my side, looking around in terror. I grabbed his arm to steady him, but he kept up a white-knuckled grip on his sword, although he managed to resist the urge to draw it.

"Do you believe in ghosts now, Gormond?" griped one of the Goodbrother sons, unable to stop his sibling bickering even in the face of this macabre display.

"A proper burial at sea will help set these souls to rest," I said, hoping that that was. As I said the words, I felt an ironclad certainty settle over me. Yes, that must be right. Something in my blood resonated with the thought, and I felt a sense of rightness even through the shroud of my anger at Greyjoy.

"There's nothing I can do to bring them back when they've been dead for so long," I continued. "But I can help guide their souls to the gates of my father's halls under the ocean." I thought back to the dream I'd had of the closed doors, of the soul-eating kraken lurking nearby, and couldn't help but frown.

"And I will hold Dad's front door open so that these men can come in," I promised.


	16. Chapter 16

Our grisly cargo made the crossing back to Pyke a muted affair. None of the men had the spirit to bicker over who was at fault, however, so they were much improved in their cohesiveness as a crew compared to our journey out to Great Wyk.

As soon as we had berthed at Lordsport, a skinny urchin was running up the gangplank.

Andrik swore at the kid, and went to box his ears, but Berryn got in the way.

"Easy there big man," he said. "I paid the little rat good coin for news." He turned to the dockrat, and examined the kid with expectant eyes. "Well, rat? What is it."

The kid looked at me, fidgeting awkwardly. He stood on his tiptoes to mumble into Berryn's ear, and then fled with a coin clutched in his fist.

Berryn gave me a grim look.

This could not possibly be good. I gave orders for the bodies of the miners to be left on board, and had the men disembark. Berryn made his way over to me as soon as we were both off the Antelope's decks. He looked at the other men for a moment and paused, as if wondering whether he should speak with them in earshot.

"Ah, fuck it," he said at last. "There's no keeping this from anyone. It's black news, Percy. Everyone we left behind is dead."

-x-x-

As soon as Berryn gave me the news, I rushed towards the longhall, barking orders for Andrik to keep the men ready and armed on the ship. Baerag and Berryn followed me, as did Jhakho. I glanced back at them and scowled. The longhall was an hour out of Lordsport by foot. I had intended to sprint to speed things up, but they couldn't possibly keep up with me.

I stopped a merchant on his cart. It was pulled by two ponies, hairy little garrons I recognised as the breed native to Harlaw. I summoned Anaklusmos and severed the horses from their burden in two sharp blows.

The merchant cried out in protest, but my sword touching his windpipe made him swallow his words.

"Berryn, pay the man for his horses," I demanded. I pulled the remnants of the harness off one pony, and pushed one gently away. "You, go with Jhakho."

"Wait, Percy!" shouted Baerag in dismay. "I should be the one to go with you."

I smiled thinly at him.

"Baerag, you're a friend, and I'd be glad to have you with me," I said to ease his mind. "But Jhakho is the better rider, and I'm in a hurry."

Jhakho shouted something incomprehensible in his home tongue, and leapt onto his garron. He patted its side and gripped it between his knees. The pony seemed too small for a man of his size, but he sat astride it easily enough, and the ease with which the creature bore him made me believe the tales of Dothraki being born in the saddle.

"I made a bargain with you, great sea khal!" he called out. "I promised I would deliver the heads of your enemies in exchange for a horse. Behold, my khal. Jhakho sits upon a horse. Where are your enemies?"

"Pyke," I growled, and sent my steed moving forwards with a squeeze of my knees.

The garrons took a few minutes to build up speed, but managed a vigorous pace once they'd had some time to build momentum. The hairy pony I was riding whickered in delight at the exertion. Apparently the exercise of running free in the sea breeze was satisfying in a way which pulling a cart could never be.

I wished that I could share in the horse's honest joy, but my mood was black.

Jhakho, at least, seemed to be having fun. He laughed to the wind as we raced up the hillside. I gave him a sour look when he wasn't looking. It didn't feel right for one of my men to be in such a good mood when others had been massacred. Barbarian warriors from across the Narrow Sea had a different take on death compared to someone who spent the first half of his life as a civilian in New York. I tried not to hold it against him, but couldn't stop a flare of irritation from rising up every time he whooped aloud.

We were at the longhall in a fraction of the time it would have taken to walk. I dismounted, and asked the pony nicely if it wouldn't mind remaining here until I came to take it back. It agreed, and lowered its head to munch on the sparse greenery underfoot.

The training yard was a miserable sight.

Corpses were everywhere. I recognised some of the bodies, but others were mutilated so badly, their faces and limbs hacked to pieces, that I was unable to identify them. I was able to count, at least. Everyone I had left behind was dead.

Except one.

Harritt was strung up against one of the training pells, face whiter than the ghosts which even now lingered on the edges of my vision.

As I looked on Harritt in horror and realised that he was still alive, I saw spectral forms rise up out of the bodies on the floor, joining the throng of ghosts.

"Percy," he groaned, and I rushed over to him.

I would have taken his hand, but it was on the far side of the yard, pinned to an archery target with a knife. And so was the other, stabbed through with a sword onto the neighouring target.

"What did those bastards do to you?" I asked, my voice a low hiss of anger. I unwound the knots tying him to the pell with a flick of my power. Sailor's knots. Still my domain. Just like Harritt was supposed to be, as one of my crew.

I felt an inordinate anger, as intense as I had when facing off against the Storm God's wrath at sea.

This time, however, I had a reason.

Harritt coughed, and spat out a glob of blood.

"They killed me," he said, and then slumped forwards as the knots gave way to my tampering. He fell bodily onto me. I caught him, and lowered him gently to the ground. He managed to lean against the post to prevent himself from falling down, but I could see it took up all of his remaining strength.

"Harritt Handless," he joked. "That's what they'll have to call me now."

I pulled my shirt off, pressing it to the stump where his right arm ended. Trying to stop the bleeding was futile, the wound was so large and crude. It looked as if his arm had been hacked apart with a woodaxe, not severed cleanly. It was a miracle he was even still alive.

I looked at him, a handless cripple of an Ironborn warrior. Maybe more a curse than a miracle.

"How long have you been hanging there?" I asked. He groaned again, and his head lolled as he tried to look up at me to answer.

"My whole life," he said, and chuckled roughly. The laugh seemed to set something bad off in his stomach. He grimaced and choked, and fell silent.

I increased the pressure from my shirt, and willed healing water out of the sky and sea. We were a few miles inland, but I called it forth with urgency. The stones beneath my feet trembled, and a geyser broke forth nearby.

The spray of water was as salty as the sea. I gathered it around my hands, working it into Harritt's abused skin.

Some colour came back into his face.

He gasped, and his body shook. His chest juddered back and forth, almost as if he was having a seizure. His head slammed into the wooden pell, and I quickly stuffed my shirt behind it to prevent him from cracking his skull open.

I would have thought he was having a seizure, too, if not for the way his arms hung limp and dead by his sides.

Jhakho knelt down beside me.

"We should give this man mercy," he said seriously, drawing his axe.

"Mercy?" I said, incredulous. "I rather think you mean the other thing."

Jhakho snorted.

"To a warrior without hands, death is a mercy."

"Yes," agreed Harritt, choking out the words through the convulsions of his body. "Kill me, Perseus Lodos."

I heard the chiming of a bell, and my sword was in my hand before I knew it. My fingers trembled as I fought them; they moved of their own accord, to a will which was not my own. I tasted bile deep in my throat, and willed Anaklusmos away.

She did not disappear.

The spectre of Perseus Lodos flickered in front of my eyes. I tried to will the image away, but it lurked in the black spots swimming in my vision like the world's most messed up inkblot test.

I opened my fingers at last with a force of effort, and my sword vanished.

"I will not kill you," I insisted, and the image of Lodos faded.

I felt dizzy, as though I'd been struck a heavy blow. I shook my head to get rid of the feeling, focusing on healing Harritt.

The bleeding from his stumps stopped, and under the hard crust where blood and gore had begun to dry, I saw new skin forming over.

Regrowing a hand was beyond my power, but I could stop him from bleeding to death. It was something.

It wasn't enough.

The wagon which we had used to carry our training yard's supplies in was still here. I apologised to the ponies for putting them back in a halter so soon after freeing them from their previous load, but it had to be done.

Jhakho helped me load up the bodies of the slain freedmen, piling them into the cart. Once the macabre cargo was ready, I hoisted Harritt into the passenger's seat.

"Jhakho, drive the wagon," I said. He bristled, and rounded on me.

"Dothraki bloodriders do not ride on wagons," he hissed. I gave him a tired look.

"You're not riding on a wagon. You're taking the bodies of your former shipmates down to the sea so I can put them to rest," I said.

The crowd of ghosts loomed closer, and Jhakho continued to protest.

I flared my power, feeling the chill bite of undeath as each of the ghosts latched onto my. They were like tiny insects biting on me, leeching away at the substance of my life. I had plenty to give, and they couldn't take very much. It made me want to wriggle and writhe away. The sensation was uncomfortable more than painful.

The living were not meant to interact with the dead.

Harritt moved his head around sluggishly.

"Am I so close to death that I can see ghosts, then?" he asked.

Jhakho merely yelped, and clutched his axe like a teddy bear.

"Do as I ask, would you?" I said tiredly. "I'd like to get these men to their rest as soon as I can, if that's alright with the mighty bloodrider."

Jhakho climbed into the driver's seat, tugging at the reigns with no small amount of urgency.

"Yes, Percy," he said hurriedly.

I relaxed my power, and the ghosts faded from sight. I could see the outlines of the dead men dim from brightness into a dull glow, almost invisible in the sunlight. They were transparent, like a reflection in a glass window which you could see through to the objects on the other side. If I looked too deeply at any of the ghosts, their shapes grew more distinct, as if the room on the other side of the glass grew dark, leaving only the silhouette of the ghost standing in the foreground against a black void.

-x-x-x-

My rage didn't settle on the journey back down the hill. My feet struck the ground, and their beat was like a drum calling me to war. The exercise made me feel like I was on the verge of meeting an opponent in an open field with sword in hand, and I longed for somebody to fight.

I ran alongside the wagon, back into Lordsport. Whether it was the sight of a madman racing a pony-drawn cart, the Dothraki in the driver's seat, Harritt sitting with his mutilated stumps in his lap beside him, or just the mound of corpses in the back which drew the attention, I couldn't even speculate.

Whichever of the many weird things it was that drew eyes to us, it caused a crowd to begin to follow our wagon down to the ship.

The Antelope was still where we left her, and nobody else was hurt, thank Poseidon.

"Gods, Harritt!" swore Baerag, running up to us as soon as we were within sight. He helped the older man off the wagon. He didn't have the strength to stand, even with Baerag's aid, and the two of them ended up in a heap on the cobbles.

Berryn spared him a glance, and then was with me.

"Percy, are you okay?" he asked.

I growled in response, and he took a step back.

I swallowed, tried and failed to calm myself, but managed to find words nonetheless.

"Get these men on the ship," I ordered. He peered over my shoulder to where the wagon was laden with almost half the men I'd brought back from the raid on the Antelope.

"God's last breath, Percy," Berryn said quietly, and I nodded.

"I know, man. I know," I said, and swallowed a heavy wave of emotion which threatened to overcome me. The sea began to roil, waves churning to and fro in synch with my mood.

The Antelope rose and fell on the waves, pulling at the ropes which bound it to the safety of the harbour. I forced the waves to calm. I could only manage it in our local area, holding the Antelope steady while gale-force winds whipped up a storm around us.

We stood in a bubble in the eye of a storm. All around me, the Ironborn crew and smallfolk of Lordsport stared.

"Fine, then," I snarled, overcome with a sudden wave of annoyance at the useless men too startled by their captain showing up with a wagon of bodies to react. I flared my power again, and there were cries of alarm as the ghosts manifested themselves into the physical world.

"Take your bodies onto the deck," I instructed. "Pick whatever spot you like best, and lay yourself out on the deck. Once you're all aboard, stay there."

Varan was the first into action, picking a man up by the shoulders. His feet remained on the ground like a normal man's as he reached into the cart, but his torso went through the solid wood when he bent to pick his comrade up.

Another ghost took that body's feet, and together they hauled him onto the ship.

Soon they were all done, and we were arranged in two distinct groups; the living stood on the shore, and the dead stood next to their own corpses on the deck of my ship.

"I don't know any of the local prayers," I said, raising my voice so it would carry through the crowd. My crew was huddled closely together, and although they had given the ghosts a wide berth, the spectators from the town hadn't gone more than a few yards away.

"I don't know what words are said over the dead. I don't know the blessings that the Drowned Men give you to send your souls on their way."

I looked around, first at the crowd, and then out to the ship. Unusually for a funeral, the dead were all staring straight back at me. It was odd to be talking about a dead person while making eye contact, but here we were.

"Some days ago, I freed men who were chained to labour at an oar on board this ship," I said. "The Antelope was going to be where they died, worked into an early grave. Now it's going to be the vehicle for taking their souls into the next world."

I snapped my fingers, and the mooring rope unfurled itself. Timbers creaked, and the wind howled, and the Antelope began to drift free from the wooden jetty.

The wind picked up.

We were no longer in the eye of a storm, but in the middle of it. Wind whipped around, tugging my hair and clothing. Waves thundered into the harbour wall and the ships moored around us groaned in protest as they were shoved to and fro.

"I offer these souls to Poseidon," I murmured quietly, and cast out a wave of force through the water. The sea rose up, spilling over the decking of the Antelope. Water built up on either side, blown one way and then the other by the wind. A great mound of water rose like a hill from the surface of the ocean, covering all the ship but its masts.

I heard the muttered words of prayer nearby, and saw Baerag staring at the ship with his hands clenched into fists by his sides. Next to him, Berryn was clutching his amulet, white-lipped and face drawn.

"I offer these souls," I heard someone begin, and whirled around in alarm as a sudden sense of foreboding shot through me. "To Perseus Lodos!" finished Berryn, the knotted shape of whalebone and wood in his hands seeming to glow.

The now-familiar bell tolled, and I heard a veritable howling in my ears. I dropped to my knees under the pressure of the prayer upon me, and slammed my fist into the cobbled streets as the water I had summoned closed over the Antelope and dragged it down.

The ship sank beneath the water.

Lodos swam before my eyes.

My vision turned white, then black, and I fell into dizziness.

I felt something from the ship.

I saw Varan. His life. Memories, feelings, loves and hatreds and urges flickered through me, too fast for my conscious mind to take notice.

And yet some part of my absorbed every last speck of his existence.

His soul passed into me, passed through me, and then was released into the sea.

My awareness of the sea grew with each soul. They struck me with enough force to make me shudder, and it took a titanic amount of effort to force myself back onto my feet. I felt my mind ease its way out among the surf and rocks. Every inch of Pyke's coastline was mine to behold. I felt a shoal of herring swimming off the eastern point, and crabs scuttling in the secret pools under the beach caves to the west.

I felt the lives of fish and birds, tiny pinpricks of life against the sea. They spoke without words, and I heard them chant my name in a chorus. Percy. Percy. Perseus. Lodos. Percy.

My world shook, and the earth shook with it.

Baerag cried out in fear, and grabbed me by the shoulder.

"Percy, is this your doing?" he asked.

I turned my head to look at him, but everything in front of my eyes was black. He recoiled, and I smiled.

I reached inwards, away from the coast. The land was an empty smudge to my mind, but I pressed against it. The ground trembled, and then with a peal like a wet finger around the rim of a glass, something inside me broke.

The island was mine.

My senses coursed over the island of Pyke. The lives of humans on the earth flared a hundred times brighter than fish or fowl, and I touched each one of them.

I felt the fear of the smallfolk cowering from the sudden storm, and the curiosity of the onlookers standing around me. I felt Baerag's shock, and Harritt's awful, wretched hollowness. I nestled him in the depths of my power, giving him what strength I could, and then turned my attention away.

Balon Greyjoy watched from his Sea Tower. I felt his baleful gaze upon me. Even without delving this deep into my divine abilities, I might have been able to detect the malice of his gaze upon me, peering through a telescope to watch me standing here in the Lordsport harbour.

I wrenched the rock beneath his feet.

Pyke was built on difficult ground. It was black and oily and slippery to the touch, and holding onto it with my power was like wrestling a kraken. I could imagine that the Seastone Chair was built out of this same stone. I could feel it lurking at the heart of the Great Keep, the lodestone of whatever power was helping to suspend the castle over these perilous stacks of rock.

I slammed my power into the ground, and felt the defences of the chair cause my attack to glide away from the castle. The island shook terribly, and I felt stones fall free from the cliffs. A gull screamed out in useless fury as its nest tumbled to smash on the jagged rocks far below, and I understood its feelings exactly.

I pushed again, and again. Pyke Island shook with each of my blows, and waves formed around the coast, growing in size to colossal proportions as they moved away.

The web of power spun out by the Seastone Chair hung across the stacks, draped over the bridges and buried into the ground to rise through the stacks. I counted ten long ropes of enchantment, one for each limb of a kraken. Some were flung out alone, other twisted and wrapped around one another.

The Sea Tower was held in place by a single limb of sorcery.

I struck out at it, focusing all my fury on that one thread of enchantment. It flinched, pulling its limb back away from my attacks as if it was a living creature.

The Sea Tower stood unprotected. Stones fell from its crooked walls, now that they were no longer held in place by the magic of the Chair. I reached deep into the source of my power, and shook the earth.

It crumbled into the sea.

Slowly, at first, but accelerating with each new assault upon the bedrock, the tower fell. Balon ran down the stairs, barely managing to stay upright as he fled.

I struck the earth out from under him, and he tumbled two stories down the narrow stairwell, slamming headfirst into the stone wall.

He managed to escape just as I managed to destroy the tower, and flung himself out onto the paltry rope bridge. It collapsed under his weight, swinging loose until he dangled with one hand, suspended ten feet below the doorway which led into the Great Keep.

I released my power, and awareness of my body snapped back into me.

Baerag was shaking me furiously.

"Percy, you have to stop this!" he cried out. His voice was heavy with terror. I looked around, and saw the ships bowed beneath the wind, and the people all around us pressed down against the floor.

Thatch and tiles had been ripped off the roofs of buildings nearby, and I could see the ponies which had pulled my wagon cowering against the wall of an alleyway, pressing their flesh into the corner of the street to cover themselves as much as possible.

Only Baerag stood, and he was clutching at me for support even as he shook me.

Way to shake the earth-shaker, Baerag. That's basically a double-negative. I'll let it cancel everything out. I stopped.

"It's alright," I said, and my voice was unexpectedly hoarse. I summoned water into cupped hands, and swallowed the mouthful. It was brackish and salty and delicious.

"Is it over now?" asked Jhakho. I saw that his axe was drawn, though I didn't know how he expected to use that against the raging wind and shaking earth. "Has the maegi khal sent his dead to the Nightlands?"

"The dead are on their way, but this isn't over yet."

I drew Anaklusmos, and began to walk inland. The crowd parted to allow me to walk through. The people actually fought one another to get out of my way, and I tried not to read too much into it.

"Balon Greyjoy survived," I said, and Jhakho nodded in understanding.

"You go to kill your enemy at last?" he asked. "Then one thing which happened today will make sense to Jhakho."

-x-x-x-

The heavy iron portcullis was down. The wall was thick, and the Gate Keep was manned with archers. There weren't enough arrows on this island to take down an earth-shaking demigod in a fury.

I cracked the earth open like a walnut, and brought the huge metal gate crashing down. The mechanism holding it in place was tangled with ropes and chains all buried in the stone of the keep. I waited patiently for it to finish falling, and then stepped through the wreckage.

One of the keepguard loosed an arrow. I slapped it out of the air with Anaklusmos, and gave him a wolf stare. Would an arrow even break my skin? I wasn't sure. But my crew were following along behind me, and they were still mortal. For now.

"Do that again, and you die," I said flatly.

He didn't listen.

I reached into the earth, and dragged the foundations of the wall out of place. He sobbed for forgiveness as he fell. It was too late for me to do anything about it, even if I were I inclined towards mercy. I was not.

The remainder of the keepguard backed off at my approach. Two men with spears stood at the entrance of the Great Keep.

I didn't even bother to use my sword. I grabbed the first one by his collar, and hauled him over the side of the bridge into the sea.

I didn't follow through to the next step and intentionally drown him. It would be up to him whether he could swim back to land or not.

His companion dropped his spear and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Good choice," I said, and stepped past him into the keep. Andrik took the spear from him, and had him escorted inside by one of my new sailors.

Inside the great hall, Greyjoy sat on the Seastone Chair. He was surrounded by his men. Not any of his lords or lackeys, just the armed men who formed his keepguard. Asha stood to his side, wearing a worried expression. Damphair was a heap of bones and robes and seaweed on the steps leading up to the dais.

I could feel the pulse of his life, though it was faint.

Even now that I had pulled my awareness back into my body, something of the thrum of divinity crept through me. The world felt wider. More real. The boundary between the edges of what was me and what was the island began to blur.

I could feel the sea crash against the shore like it was the beating of my heart, the rivers flowing down the hillside like blood in my veins.

"I freed those men," I said accusingly. "And you killed them all."

"You defied the Old Way!" spat Balon. He rose gracefully from his throne, drawing his sword. "You claim to be the son of the Drowned God, but you preach softness and restrain! I name you a liar and a heretic."

He kicked his brother. Damphair rolled onto his side, and the motion caused him to slide down onto the next stair. Asha gasped, and made to go tend to her uncle, but Balon thrust a hand out to stop her.

"Be still, girl!" he barked. "My fool brothers will pay the price for their treachery. Oh, I see his hand in this. Aeron Damphair's religion and Euron Crow's Eye's black sorcery. Never would I have thought those two would reconcile to plot against me!"

"I've never met this Euron," I said, crossing the length of the hall.

At a signal from Greyjoy, his men rushed me all at once. There were more than twenty of them in total. One by one, I knocked them to the ground.

I didn't even bother to act like I was fighting. I walked through the rain of their steel like it was nothing, cutting them down as I went. I didn't turn. I didn't pause. I just walked on through them and they fell in my wake.

Twenty steps later, I was at the foot of the dais.

"You are no king of the sea. You will never take my throne!" he hissed.

"I don't want it!"

We stared at one another for a long moment. He flung his sword back, and began to move forwards to attack me. He choked, suddenly, and his movement was interrupted. Saliva began to foam at the corners of his mouth.

"But then again," I mused. "It's not for the likes of you, either."

I tightened my focus, pouring the power of the sea into him. It was cold and hard and cruel, just as Balon believed.

And for now, so was I.

Seawater spurted out of his mouth. It poured out of his nostrils, his ears. He gagged, and pitched forwards, and vomited brine.

Balon choked and convulsed on the floor, a pool of water emerging from his mouth. He flopped helplessly, reminding me of nothing so much as a fish caught on a hook.

Asha knelt down, picking up Damphair and hauling him away from us. She didn't get far, propping him up against a nearby bench. His eyes rolled back in his head, but then the fog in them cleared, and he clutched at his niece's hand.

"Remember this moment when you are choosing your enemies, Asha," he urged.

"Remember this moment when you are choosing what sort of leader to be," I corrected. "Lady Reaper of Pyke."


	17. Chapter 17

The Antelope sailed beneath the sea, wreathed in St Elmo's fire. I watched it travel into the deep places, until at last it came before the Drowned God's Hall. This was a familiar sight, and if not a welcome one, certainly one I'd been expecting.

I was dreaming, and yet awake. I was in a bed on Pyke, yet my body moved through the water leagues away and endless fathoms below the surface.

I swam closer to the ship, and found that my dream-body dwarfed it. I held a hand before my eyes, and it nearly existed. Water swam in odd currents, captured within the shape of my body on a giant scale. The same scale, in fact, as the Drowned God's Hall itself.

I raised a fist and knocked, uncertain whether I had conjured a golem of water or was astral projecting my divine spirit into tangible form. Would there be a difference between the two? I honestly didn't know, and that worried me.

The door boomed with each knock, echoing like a gong. Like the bells I kept hearing whenever I thought of Perseus Lodos, that spectre of a potential fate which haunted me.

It felt smooth beneath my knuckles. I looked at it closely, and saw that it was carved out of a single sheet of whalebone. I'd never encountered a sea creature big enough to have bones like this. Even Charybdis and Scylla weren't so large that a single cross-section of bone could form a door like this.

Now that I was looking for them, I saw the whorls and rings that marked the bands of the leviathan's growth. I tried to count them, but there were too many, and they faded too softly into one another for me to tell where one truly ended and the next began. The undulating pattern of white and grey gave the door a pearlescent shimmer. It was beautiful, and hypnotic, and somehow sad.

Besides, it wasn't like this was a tree. I couldn't count the rings and work out how old the leviathan had been when it was slain.

Could I?

Probably not.

I knocked again.

The door didn't open. The Antelope came forwards, and the prow butted against the door lightly. I saw the charred ruin which had once been its figurehead before the Storm God had destroyed it with a lightning strike.

I was sick of Zeus' temper. Even if this wasn't really the Zeus that I knew from back home, but a distant version of him. I was sick of the people I was responsible for dying, and as I saw a dark shape dart across the edge of my sight, I decided that most of all I was sick of krakens and doors which wouldn't open.

Oh.

I grabbed hold of the door handle. Fine, then. Nobody was home to open the doors, but this was Dad's house. He's not around, so I guess that makes it basically mine. The handle turned. There was a scream of protest, like steam escaping from a pipe, but it turned. And clicked. And then the door opened.

The Antelope floated into the hall.

It was dark and silent. Braziers along the length of the room flared to life with the violet-blue shades of St. Elmo's fire. It hissed and buzzed like wasps, like lightning, and it lit the room.

Tables sized for giants took up most of the room. On top of some of them were smaller tables, shaped more for human use, and the hall stretched away into whiteness. There was no end to the room, no horizon. I could see down an infinite corridor, but after a certain length my eyes fogged over and the details grew sparse. I could imagine that it was some kind of safety net falling into place, my mortal mind being sheltered from impossible sights by my divine half.

Some sights could turn a mortal mad, or kill him outright. Infinity was one of them. As was the true form of a god.

There was no end to the hall, but there was a point of convergence, where the infinite distance and the finite reality nearby met in relative harmony. It was the exact centre of the hall, yet stood close enough to the doorway that I could see it. That I could reach it.

I swam over, and there, in the heart of my father's watery hall, was a throne. The chair was carved from the same oily black stone as the Seastone Chair. A brazier sat on either side, lighting the surrounding area. The light seemed to be absorbed by the throne rather than reflected by it.

I looked to the Antelope, and saw Varan's tiny figure disembark. He raised an arm and waved to me from a distance. I returned the gesture, watching him and his fellows as they stepped foot on the massive table.

The water fogged over, and I lost sight of them. The infinite distance moved, somehow, and now a new part of the hall was where they had been. I sensed the sparks of their souls, closely attuned to me after having passed through me to reach the holy places of the deep, but they were somewhere distant. Somewhere I was not yet able to follow them to.

Merpeople swam in a newly brightened hall. They cheered and feasted, and one pair even rode hippocampi in a lazy lap around the room.

Platters of bread and grapes and meat were scattered around the tabletops. I saw delicate sculptures of spun sugar, and centrepieces in the shapes of narwhals had long links of fat pork sausage draped around them.

I swear I saw a can of blue coca cola, but a merman blocked my view, and then he lifted a goblet of red wine from the place-where I thought it had been.

None of them seemed to see me.

I took a step forward.

The water around the throne hummed as if it was electrified. The air which moved through my skin and straight into my blood felt peculiar, excitable. As if it was pure oxygen, one spark away from igniting even here in the depths of the sea.

I touched the throne with one finger, toying with the idea of sitting on it. I'd sat on Poseidon's throne on Olympus before. I'd felt all his awesome power and majesty, felt the weight of the entire sea at once.

It was tempting.

But there was an unwelcome visitor at the door, and I swam to greet them.

"Balon," I said. My words escaped as bubbles from my lips, but he understood me. He recognised me. I saw it in the terror in his tiny, human face.

Greyjoy had died by drowning, but on dry land. Because I had willed it. He had murdered the men I had freed from slavery, my first real step into showing the Ironborn a kinder path, and disfigured one of the first crewmembers I had found here. One of the first friends. I didn't know Harritt well, but he had welcomed me into his life and accepted me as a normal person alongside all the weirdness which came with my family history.

What Balon had done to him was unacceptable. Maybe he hadn't held the weapon himself, but he was undoubtedly the one who had given the order.

If I had anything to say about it, he wasn't welcome in the afterlife reserved for my people. The people he had persistently wronged. He had harmed them in his life, but I would make certain that he could do no harm to them in his afterlife.

I stepped out of the hall, and slammed the door shut behind me. The sounds of feasting and merrymaking disappeared at once. The lights from the windows dimmed. The hall was silent once more.

I noticed that the lantern suspended in the arch of the doorway was now lit, however. A green flame burned above the doors, the colour of the corpselight lantern Varan had held. The Drowned God's Hall was still dead and silent and waiting, but it was beginning to wake up.

"This place is not for you," I said.

"I am king of the Ironborn!" he snarled, and I folded my arms. I leaned against the door, and looked down at him. In this giant avatar of water shaped like me, he was so small and insignificant I could hardly imagine why I'd found him such a threat only a day before.

"You have lost your crown, your life, and your lands," I said. "You chose cruelty over compassion, treachery over loyalty, and the selfish lie of the Old Ways over true belief in the Drowned God."

Balon remained silent, but glared up at me ferociously. There was no doubting my divinity anymore, not here and now at the gates of Poseidon's answer to Valhalla. He had gone past denial, which left him with anger.

No, anger was too strong a passion for a man so cold as Greyjoy.

All I could see in his expression was resentment. Resentment for me, for the situation he found himself in, for the whole world. That was why he was such an utter bastard. He was cold inside, and all the warm parts of the world burned him to touch.

I wondered what could have twisted him like this, but found that I didn't care.

"You will never enter my halls," I declared. "You are not worthy."

The kraken swam across my vision, a goliath of a sea beast which only vaguely resembled a squid. Its eyes were multi-faceted and opalescent, and as black as the Seastone Chair. I hesitated, wondering if I was really willing to consign something to such an awful fate as being eaten by a kraken at the gates of the afterlife.

I remembered Varan, cheerfully waving to me even after I had let him die by not watching Greyjoy's actions more closely.

Yes. Yes I was willing to let Greyjoy be eaten by a kraken.

Perhaps his soul would be destroyed. Perhaps this was just one step in the metaphysical cycle of rebirth, and he would be screaming out of a red-faced baby on Great Wyk by morning. Perhaps he would experience the agony of a kraken's digestive acids tearing him apart for the rest of eternity.

There was no wrong option.

I stood back and watched.

The kraken swam around us in a wide circle, making sure to keep its distance. It seemed nervous, unwilling to dart forth and snatch up Balon the way it had devoured the last soul I had witnessed in this place.

The reason was pretty obvious. I was here.

The predatory sea beast darted in sharp, erratic motions. I could tell that it was going to special effort to make its movements unpredictable and hard to follow. It flailed its limbs nervously.

I wasn't going anywhere while Greyjoy was standing at the door to the afterlife, so I stood my ground and waited.

After a time, the kraken swam away, leaving just the two of us.

I stared at Balon impassively. He had the sense not to try bargaining, at least. My mind was set. He wasn't welcome in the halls of my father. He could reincarnate and find amnesty in a fresh life unburdened by the sins of this one, or he could wander the sea as a lost soul for all eternity, for all I cared.

There was a change in the ocean currents.

I felt warmer water move in like a breeze tickling my face. There was a taste of sulphur and blood.

Balon cocked his head, as if listening to something. His lips moved.

I frowned.

"Euron?" he repeated. "I'm sorry, brother. I thought you were behind Lodos. I see the truth now. You were too far away. You couldn't have orchestrated this while sailing the ruins of Old Valyria."

I listened as hard as I could, but couldn't hear who he was talking to. Couldn't see anyone, or sense them nearby, either. Perhaps this was just what happened to ghosts. They were always going mad and reliving their lives in ghost stories - why should reality be so different?

He turned, slowly, like a marionette on a string, until he faced the direction from which the warm current came.

Balon drifted away, suspended limply in the water.

I thought I heard a voice whispering. It wasn't like the chorus from Varan's lantern in the mines. This was just one voice. And then it faded.

I was suspicious of tricks, so I remained by the door to guard it. Balon was washed away by the current, slowly at first, but it picked up greater speed as it moved away. The current moved through the ocean and sea, twisting in the way that water does as it passes through distorted space to travel between the worlds of gods and men.

My awareness of things happening in the sea around me was still vast, and I centred my attention on Balon. I followed him through the twists of magic which bore the current to the Drowned God's Halls to a lagoon in the Smoking Sea.

I knew where we are in the way I always know where things are at sea. Knowledge filtered into my understanding of the place as I looked around. I saw the wreckage of a port which had once been a city in the Valyrian Freehold. Buildings made from fused stone rose higher than anything I had seen on the Iron Islands, their architecture as delicate and elegant as some of the lesser palaces on Olympus.

I saw the cratered face of the volcano from which Balerion had risen in the shape of a black dragon, and the shattered chain of islands from where the ground had torn itself up in his passing. I saw the hunting grounds of Meraxes, and the shell of a temple to Syrax, half-buried in the sand

Balon's ghost drifted under the sea.

Some disaster here had reshaped this cove into a wide, shallow lagoon. I could stand upright in my giant watery avatar and only come up to my knees in the water. The water remained behind, and I felt insubstantial and naked in the air. I felt as though I could conjure my shape back out of the water if I put in the effort.

But this was out in the mortal world, and there was a ship nearby. I kept to my astral form so as not to alarm the sailors nearby with a giant hundreds of feet tall looming over them.

The ship was built to a similar mould as Asha's Black Wind with a similar single mast and black sail, only larger. It had higher sides, and appeared to have a second deck built below the first. The hull was painted the dark red of blood on timber, and the figurehead was made out of a piece of solid iron. It took the shape of a women, lovely in form and feature with a slender waist and high breasts, but she had no mouth and her eyes were made from mother-of-pearl which made them look as if they were flung open perpetually wide in horror or pain.

A body splashed into the sea, and I rushed closer to pay more attention to the ship. I saw the word Silence painted in white on its side.

A stream of red rose up from the body. It was a man, clad in brightly coloured robes and decorated with amulets and pendants and charms of all kinds. They didn't seem to have done him much good, for his throat had been slit.

His body landed on the sandy bottom of the lagoon soon after. He struck an odd, green-ish rock. It was faceted like the eyes of the kraken had been, an egg-shape of flat hard planes of shining green instead of black. It resembled nothing so much as an unpolished gemstone. Blood spiralled lazily up into the water, and then the man's body sank down to curl around the rock. His blood smeared along the side, colouring one of the planes with scarlet.

Balon seemed to become alert, suddenly, and the current dragged him with some force towards the dead man.

He reached out to touch the egg-shaped gemstone.

The world cracked.

-x-x-x-

It was two days after I had killed Balon Greyjoy, and Harritt had taken over Maester Qalen's old sickroom. I had insisted that he get the best medical care available to the Ironborn, and Asha had granted my request. So much as that was worth.

"Give me the mercy of the long sleep, captain," begged Harritt.

"No," I said flatly. "You're not bleeding out anymore. Your wounds are sealed. You've suffered a terrible injury, but you're not going to die."

He laughed bleakly, struggling to sit upright in bed. The blankets draped over him got tangled, and he flailed helplessly to push them away. After a moment of struggle, he managed to pinch the end of the fabric between the remains of his forearms and pull it away.

"What sort of life can a man like this hope to have?" he asked bitterly.

Helwren tried to lift a cup to his lips, and he knocked it out of her hands.

I caught the steaming liquid in mid-air.

"What is this, more blasted tea?" he growled. "I've had enough of Mother Heron's herbs and poultices to last me into the next lifetime. Had enough of a lot of things for this life."

I held the liquid in front of his face, waving it around in a slender rope. Steam wafted over his face, carrying the scent with it.

"It's hot brandy," I said, and he stopped grumbling.

"With honey and ginger," added Helwren. "I made it to soothe Andrik's headache, and he thought you might like a taste."

Harritt sat back, and buried his elbows in the straw mattress to help prop himself up further.

"Oh, very well," he said, and I poured the liquid back into the cup. Helwren lifted it back up to Harritt's lips, and he took a large gulp.

Some of it splashed over his chin. He reached up to wipe it away, almost knocking the cup over again.

His limbs were shorter than before, not longer, but the loss of his hands had still made him clumsy. He reached for things as if he had hands, still, at first. And then he overcompensated, leaning too far forwards to crudely manipulate things with what little he had left. On his right arm, he had everything intact up to his wrist. The hand had been cut just below his palm.

His left arm had been victim to a much more brutal attack, several swipes cutting deep into the flesh on both sides of his elbow, and the severed stump lay nearer to his elbow than his hand.

Harritt swallowed the brandy, and ran a tongue over his lips to catch the spilled liquid. Helwren was rummaging in her pockets for a cloth to wipe the spill off his chin. I nudged it up into his mouth with a delicate use of my power, and winked at her when Harritt wasn't looking.

She noticed what I was doing, and gave me a look of long-suffering exasperation.

At least she wasn't freaked out by my abilities. I'd take irritation over shock and awe any day. Well, except in battle. My enemies could stand and gape all they wanted.

"Percy," said Harritt seriously once he'd finished his drink. "You will grant me death, or I'll go find it for myself."

"I said no already," I repeated.

Helwren tutted, and I rounded on her.

"What, you think I'm making the wrong choice?" I demanded.

"I think it's not your choice at all, godling," she said, and there was a trace of a sneer on her face. "This man fought for you. He lost his life as a warrior for you. Instead of respecting his sacrifice and easing his passing, you're forcing him to endure the half-life of a cripple. And what happens when you get bored? Distracted? When some other feud draws your attention? The passions of men are fickle, and the gods more fickle still."

"I won't forget about Harritt," I insisted. "His sacrifice is exactly why I can't just kill him. I have to show him that life is still worth living."

"My life has been lived," he said. "I had a good life. I lost it defending my god's choice to defy the tyranny of the Old Way and create the Iron Islands anew. That was worthwhile. I can't fight. I can't row. I can't even fish. What's a man to do with no hands except sit around and slowly shit himself to death?"

I placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it guiltily. Maybe it was cruel to keep a man alive in a place like this when he had no means of fending for himself. I could arrange for him to be looked after, but that would make every breath he drew an insult to his pride.

"Do you realize why Greyjoy has offered to have me taken care of?" he asked. "She knows how fiercely protective you are going to be of your crew now, after her father had your freedmen killed. I'm not here as a patient. I'm here as leverage. She is keeping me around so that if she ever needs to, she can use me against you. I'll die without someone to look after me like a mewling babe. I can't fight off a greybeard with a knife and an empty purse. How far would you go to protect one of your crew, even the useless shit with no hands, eh?"

"Asha knows I'm not her enemy," I said, and Harritt snorted in reply.

"She knows what kind of enemy you would be if you were, though," he said. "And she's doing her best to learn how to work you like a puppet in case that day ever comes."

"I can't kill you," I said quietly. "That's not the kind of person I am. I have to try to make things better for you before I give up."

"Can you give me back my hands?" he asked sourly.

I shook my head.

"I don't know how," I said. Maybe it was possible. The Olympians might be able to do it. Their titan predecessors could have, if they were so inclined. If Prometheus was able to create men out of clay, perhaps he would be able to create just a hand or two.

"Then kill me!" he roared, leaning forwards in the bed. Spittle flew from the corner of his mouth, and Helwren took a step back from his outburst.

She placed the empty cup on the table, and folded her cloth over it.

"You should leave, Percy," she said. "If you won't grant him easy mercy, grant him some time to get used to the idea that he has to live."

"You utter bastard," he growled, and I left.

-x-x-x-

Andrik had a room downstairs. It was away from the barracks shared by the rest of the Ironborn warriors as a gesture for his status. The smell of cooking had faded away by now, given the late hour, although the smell of fish was pervasive. Warmth from the fires in the kitchen below still rose up, and the flagstones of the floor were pleasant to touch.

I took my shoes off and collapsed onto the rug.

Andrik handed me a cup of the same warm brandy I had been feeding to Harritt, and I accepted it with thanks. It burned my throat and was sweet enough to make my cringe. I finished every drop.

"He's still just as bad," I said, and Andrik grunted.

"His body is in uncommon health for a man who has suffered two violent amputations," said Helwren, descending the stairs to join us. She looked askance at me sprawled out on the rug, and then took a seat in a hard-backed wooden chair. "His mind is another matter entirely. I'm not sure you did him any favours by healing him. Without the pain of the injury to focus on, his mind is free to wander. To contemplate what this loss will mean for him."

"I'm not going to let someone be in pain if I can stop it," I protested.

"Don't pretend that this was a deliberate decision," she said. "You saw his injuries. You tried to heal them. You reacted, you didn't think."

"If I'd stopped to think, I'd have done the same thing," I argued. "That's what instinct is for. It's when you know the right path to take as soon as you see it."

"Perhaps," she said, and poured herself a drink of her own. She knocked it back with the same enthusiasm I had done, and then rested her hands on the belly which was beginning to protrude.

I frowned, noticing something odd about that scene.

"Should you be drinking brandy in your condition?" I asked.

"What condition?" Andrik asked. "She's not sick. Are you, Hel?"

She rolled her eyes.

"No, I'm not sick. And even if I was, this is honey and ginger. In brandy That's medicinal."

"You're pregnant," I said.

"It settles my stomach."

"But isn't that, you know, bad for the baby?"

Helwren laughed, and stroked the bulge of her stomach.

"If drinking harmed babies, none would ever be born on these islands, you mark my words."

I opened my mouth to protest, but she interrupted me.

"I've had quite enough of you sticking your nose in affairs you know nothing about, thank you," she said. "You won't do for Harritt because you don't understand his ways, and you certainly don't understand the ways of women well enough to lecture me about childbirth."

I gave up, and stretched my hands closer to the fire. The smell of pine resin was sweet in the air, this close to it. It almost managed to override the reek of fish.

"I am sorry, you know," I said. She gave me an odd look, and I continued to clarify what I meant. "About the way we met. It had to look real, otherwise I would have told you what was happening. I didn't want Andrik to kill you, and short of fighting every Ironborn on this island, I didn't see a quicker way to get you out of that situation."

She gave Andrik an affectionate look, and he walked over to rest his hands on her shoulders. With one of his huge hands, fingers thick as sausages, he played with the fine strands of her hair. The other simply held on to her. She reached up and took his hand in her own.

"I'm not convinced this big lummox would have done it no matter how much Greyjoy demanded," she said, smiling up at him. "But Greyjoy would have found another way to get to him, and probably put me to the sword anyway to spite me from getting away. Your apology isn't necessary."

She dropped Andrik's hand, and gave me a serious look.

"But I thank you for it nonetheless," she added.

"I've been meaning to ask you something," rumbled Andrik, and both of us turned to look at him. "You mentioned it to me this morn', Hel, and I've been thinking it over," he said to her, before looking over to me. "Why did you give the lordship to the Greyjoy girl?"

I shrugged.

"She's the rightful heir, isn't she? Eldest daughter of the Lord Reaper of Pyke. Who else would it go to? I don't want it. I'm not a Greyjoy, not from the Iron Islands, and maybe not even nobility, depending how you rank the gods."

"I don't think anyone considers the gods to be smallfolk," said Andrik. "Why not her brother, though? Theon has been fostered with Stark these past few years, but he's still a Greyjoy."

"I've never met Theon," I said. "I don't know what kind of man he is, what kind of leader he'll be. But I've seen Asha, and although she's got a lot to learn, she knows a bit of what she has to do. She just needs time to learn how to put it into practice. She could have become a decent captain once she'd had a few more voyages under her belt. Now she just has to learn how to captain a bigger ship."

"Is that really your reason?" Andrik pressed.

I looked into the fire, feeling slightly abashed.

"Well she was also right there, you know?" I asked. Helwren let out a high, delighted laugh, and held a hand to her mouth.

"You don't even realise the part which has us confused, do you?" she asked. She and Andrik exchanged a knowing look, and I stared at them both in confusion. What on earth was she twittering about? She obviously had something in mind, and I didn't want to have to trawl through a hundred justifications of my actions until I stumbled upon the one tidbit she was amused by.

Yeah, that's right, I have a hundred justifications for why I gave Asha her father's position. Let me group them all together and call them instinct so I don't need to think about them. I don't want to have to think about any of the baggage that comes with ruling people. Add that to the list of reasons I'm not going to think about.

"What part do you mean? Just tell me what you're talking about instead of dancing around it," I said.

"Asha Greyjoy is a woman. The eldest male heir is supposed to inherit."

"Oh," I said. I scowled, and sat upright, pulling my feet in to tuck them under me against the warm fabric of the rug. "I guess that sort of thing is still common around here, huh? Annabeth would kick my ass if I bought into that old-fashioned bullcrap."

"Who is Annabeth?" Andrik asked. "You've mentioned that name before."

"She's my wife," I said.


	18. Chapter 18

The town square was crowded. Smallfolk and thralls and Ironborn alike stood elbow to elbow, barely even jostling for position.

Lordsport was trying to go about its usual business, but this particular square was impassable. Over the stillness of the crowd I could hear a wagon driver shouting for people to get out of his way. They wouldn't budge. He swore and grumbled and swung a wooden cudgel to beat his way through.

The rattle of wheels against the cobbles punctuated the silence as Damphair climbed onto the hastily erected wooden platform towards one side of the square.

He raised his waterskin to his lips and drank deep. I was distant from the platform, skulking deep in the crowd with a hooded cloak pulled over my head to conceal my face. Even from here I saw the whites of his eyes flash against the dark bristles of his hair, and the way his mouth contorted in a sour pucker when he pulled the skin away.

Seawater. I was certain of it.

Damphair reached down, passing the skin to the first ranks of the crowd. At a gesture from him, the man took a sip, and then passed it on to the next person.

I couldn't see their expressions from here, but from the way their shoulders hunched and they cringed and shook before passing it on, I couldn't imagine they were enjoying it.

Madmen, all of them.

Not for the first time, I had the thought that I should put a stop to this before it was too late.

It was already too late.

I had conjured an earthquake, shattered the Sea Tower, and drowned on dry land a man who was all but their king.

The locals had noticed, and sailors were a superstitious lot.

The waterskin was passed back up to Damphair. He tipped his head back and pulled a long swallow, then poured the rest over his face. He shook his head fiercely, droplets of water scattering in every direction from the tangled locks of his hair, and threw the empty skin to the ground.

"Who shelters you from the storm?" he roared, and the crowd pushed forwards like the shoreline at high tide.

"Who strikes the land with the hammer of the waters?" he cried out. "Whose anger drowns the unworthy in their halls? Whose hand uprights the capsized ships?"

I snorted, and nudged Berryn in the side.

"I capsized that ship to begin with," I muttered in amusement. He shushed me without looking, and pushed my elbow away.

I turned to stare at him in bewilderment. He'd insisted on dragging me out here to listen to Damphair preach, so I get that he wanted to listen, but this was weird. He was ignoring me so that he could listen to somebody else preach about me.

That was messed up in all kinds of ways.

I didn't feel comfortable with this.

His lips moved silently along with Damphair as the priest continued to rant and rave about my deeds. The things he was saying weren't untrue, not really, but they were twisted ever so slightly. Berryn stared ahead, almost unblinking. His eyes were wide and fixed, and I saw his hands clasped tightly around his amulet.

The crowd was mesmerised by Damphair's sermon. There was none of the shifting or jostling I'd expect. Everyone was transfixed, except for me.

A growing feeling of unease came over me. The crowd was pressing in too close, and the press of bodies blocked any of the sea breeze from reaching me. I felt hot, and restless, and looked around for a break in the audience where I could squeeze my way out and find an open spot to breathe.

Somebody shoved his way to the front, and Damphair stilled to look at the newcomer.

"Lodos killed my son!" the man bellowed. He was a short, squat man with thickly muscled arms. He had the tattoos and heavy gold earrings of a sailor, but carried no weapons.

I froze, wracking my brains to think of who this could be. I had killed Balon Greyjoy, but his father had died years ago. I had killed pirates down at the Stepstones, but I didn't think it likely that any of the had been Ironborn, by their colouration and service on a foreign ship.

One of the miners, perhaps? I couldn't think of who else might blame me for their death.

"Percy Jackson kills those who deserve to die," declared Damphair imperiously, staring down at him.

The man clambered awkwardly onto the platform. He wheezed with the effort, but then turned to face the crowd.

"Lodos conjured a storm to destroy Pyke and threw my son off our fishing boat!" he shouted. "He's no son of the Drowned God. He's a sorceror and a murderer. He killed the Greyjoy, and he's killing us!"

"Liar," I said loudly, and those of the crowd nearest me turned to see who had spoken.

I threw back the hood of my cloak and made my way to the wooden platform. Unlike the interloper, I didn't have to shove my way through. The crowd stepped back to allow me to pass.

I leapt onto the platform, jumping clear onto it from the ground. It wasn't particularly high, only four feet off the ground, but I heard a gasp of surprise from the people nearest me. Yeah, that's right. Remember who you're dealing with before you listen to this guy.

"I killed one man that day," I said, looking first at my accuser and then turning to face out to the audience. "One man drowned during that madness, and none other. I made certain of it."

"It's true!" another man called out, one standing near the front. His beard glistened with moisture, and I realised that he was one of the ones who had drunk Damphair's seawater. "I fell overboard when the tower fell, but the sea pushed me up again, carried me to shore!"

"And me," said another, buried deeper in the massed ranks. "The waves stilled so I could swim away, and rose again when I was on the beach!"

The fisherman who had accused me of murder gnashed his teeth. He reached to his hip, as if grasping for a weapon which wasn't there. When his fingers closed on empty air, he growled in frustration and stamped forwards to glare at me, face to face.

"My son drowned!" he insisted. Damphair moved to grab the man and pull him away, but I held out a hand to let him know to stand back. It wasn't as if this guy stood a chance of hurting me, after all. He wasn't armed with anything but his words.

And if I didn't want this crowd to turn on me, I had to disarm him, not just silence him with violence.

"No, he didn't," I replied, pitching my voice so it would carry throughout the square. "Where do you think a man's soul goes when he drowns around here? It goes to me. I brought one ship of murdered men into my father's halls that day, and cast one soul out to wander the sea."

Damphair flinched at that, and grasped my shoulder. I turned, slightly, to look at him.

"You cast my brother's soul out of the Drowned God's halls?" he asked, his voice a low hiss and eyes hooded. "You had the right to kill him, but he drowned! His soul should have gone to God."

"Should my people have to share eternity with the man who killed them?" I asked. Damphair looked furious, but slowly nodded in acquiescence.

The fisherman laughed, then, a harsh barking sound like an injured seal.

"You've got the wrong Greyjoy, Lodos," he said, and sneered at me. "Balon gave the orders, but it was Victarion who did the deed."

"Ah," said Damphair, and whirled to the sailor. "So that's where I know you from." He placed a bony hand on the man's chest and shoved him away. Despite his thin frame, Damphair was all wiry strength and fury, and the man staggered backwards. Damphair moved with him, and pushed again, shoving him right off the platform.

The sailor struck the cobbled ground with a pained cry. The bystanders stepped away from him, not helping him up, and he remained there on his back. His head twitched back and forth, eyes flickering. He didn't move except to moan.

"This is no fisherman," Damphair shouted. "This man is from my brother Victarion's crew, come to slander Lodos to strengthen his captain's claim. Balon is forsaken. Victarion is unworthy. God stands with the Lady Reaper of Pyke."

The crowd roared, but I couldn't help but notice that not everyone joined in. There were angry mutters as well, and I saw uncertain looks exchanged between neighbours.

"Asha wants to see you," said Damphair, speaking just to me now.

"No she doesn't," I replied, and why would she? I had just killed her father. I must be the last person in the world she wanted to see, which is why I'd been staying as far away from her as I could without leaving the island.

"Perhaps," Damphair agreed. "But the Lady Reaper of Pyke wants to see you."

-x-x-x-

Asha did not look comfortable on the Seastone Chair. The oily stone undulated in the light streaming in from the narrow, high windows of the Great Keep.

The heart of my crew were with me. Andrik to my left, Baerag to my right. Berryn and Harritt followed behind us. Damphair stood by Asha's side on the raised dais at the end of the hall, and I wondered whether I should count him as one of my men or one of Asha's. He had been deeply unhappy at the news that I had cast Balon out from the Drowned God's halls, but not voiced any complaints out loud after his initial objection.

The keepguard ringed the entrances to the hall, and a number of men I hadn't seen before were sitting at one of the tables, nearly a dozen in all. Standing at their head was the squat fisherman from the square earlier in the day, and a man who bore the trademark features of the Greyjoy line; sharp nose, cold eyes, and a cruel cast to his expression.

"You killed my brother," shouted Victarion Greyjoy as my group drew closer. He moved around the table to block out path, and his crew rose from their seats.

"I avenged my people," I replied, and he spat in response.

"You claim to be a godly man, but no Ironborn may spill the blood of Ironborn," he said. "Such was the edict of the Drowned Men." His crew drew their weapons and banged them on the table in response. A grim applause. If he intended to intimidate me, it wasn't working.

Asha looked disturbed, and Baerag stepped closer to me. Andrik looked bored, as did Harritt.

"I didn't spill a single drop of Balon's blood," I said, halting to prevent me from walking straight into Victarion. He glared at me, but it didn't faze me. What was one pissed off Ironborn compared to a stampeding minotaur? To an enraged cyclops, or a giant standing in his theatre of skulls?

"Percy Jackson is no Ironborn," declared Asha, standing from her throne. She stepped down from the dais, and placed a hand on Victarion's arm.

"Just as a thrall may kill an Ironborn in self-defence, Percy killed Balon in defence of his people," said Damphair suddenly, moving to join us. "The Drowned God defends us. When that fails, he will avenge us, and the sea will swallow our enemies. That is our way."

Victarion snarled, a low animal sound from the back of his throat. His men moved forwards from the table to surround us. Andrik reached for his sword, but I put a hand on his wrist to stop him. He gave me a look, and I shook my head.

It wouldn't do to escalate this. I didn't want to have to kill any more of this family.

"Balon was your brother too," Victarion shouted at Damphair. "You have been mad since our father died. Have you drunk so much of the sea that it has taken the last of your wits?"

"Father died because he angered God," said Asha. Her eyes flicked to me, her expression unreadable. "I mourn his passing as much as you, but he is gone. We don't need to throw our lives away as well."

Victarion ignored her, and continued to stare at Damphair.

"No godless men or women may sit the Seastone Chair," he said. "Bad enough that Balon let her play-act at being a captain. I spoke against it out of respect for our ways, but thought there no real harm in it. But this! Some chit of a girl has no place as the Reaper of Pyke. That title is Theon's. Or mine. Even you would inherit before a woman, priest."

"Percy says otherwise," replied Damphair, voice even and measured. "Who are we to go against the word of God?"

"Magic tricks do not make a man a god," roared Victarion, and his men pressed closer.

"You were not there," said Asha quietly. "You did not see."

"I see enough," he growled. "I see our ways profaned by this greenland sorceror."

Victarion shook her off, and pulled out his sword. He shoved Damphair away with his other hand and rushed forwards, swinging wildly.

"Your blood for the Drowned God," he bellowed, and his men howled in response. "Seize the others to be drowned. Slay Lodos where he stands!"

Berryn pushed past me, drawing his sword.

"For Lodos!" he cried, and I felt the ground quake.

Victarion's blade crashed into Berryn's with a great force. Victarion's crew paused in their advance to watch their captain duel.

I gestured for my crew to hold back, too. It was a vain hope, but if we could take down their captain in front of them, they may stop there. If both crews engaged one another fully, it wouldn't stop until every man from one side was down.

He was a skilled fighter. His swings were uncompromising in strength and rage, and for all that his technique was crude, the force behind them more than made up for it. He was more of a butcher than a swordsman, and Berryn would have been dead if Victarion hadn't been trying to disarm him instead.

Within moments, Berryn's sword clattered to the ground and Victarion had his sword at his throat.

Anaklusmos was in my hand a moment later.

"Drop your weapon or your man dies," Victarion demanded.

I grinned.

"Berryn, do you have faith in me?" I asked. He locked eyes with me, and returned my smile. He looked completely unfazed by the steel grazing his skin, an utter contrast to the terrified man I had first met in this same hall, coming to slay me on Balon Greyjoy's orders.

"If I die, I die for you, Percy," he said with unwavering conviction.

Victarion made an angry noise, and I shook my head.

"That won't be necessary. I only hurt my enemies."

Victarion's eyes widened, and he tried to pull his sword across Berryn's throat.

Mortal reflexes were too slow to compare to mine.

Before he had noticed I was moving, I had crossed the distance between us. Anaklusmos swung in an arc of glinting bronze. The sunlight from the high windows turned the blade into a mirror-shine. It almost seemed to glow as I swept it through Berryn's neck and Victarion's wrist.

My sword passed like smoke through Berryn's flesh, leaving him unharmed. Victarion's wrist was a spray of blood, and his hand was a useless lump dropping to the floor.

He screamed, and Berryn kicked his sword away. He punched Victarion once in the stomach, hard, and then again in the face. The Greyjoy captain was a stout man, and didn't fall, so Berryn wrestled him to the ground.

The other man howled and cradled his bleeding stump.

Metal clattered. First Victarion's sword hit the ground, and then no small number of his crew dropped theirs as well.

"What are you doing?" he shouted, voice strained with agony. "Defend me, you craven bastards. Kill him!"

"Any man who leaves may live," I said. I struck the ground with a hammer of my will, and Pyke Keep trembled. "Leave!" I shouted, and they obeyed amidst Victarion's curses.

"Ten of my finest men, and not one of them has the balls to fight an outlander and his traitors," spat Victarion.

Berryn struck him in the face.

"You are the traitor," he said.

"No," I said. "He's not a traitor. He's a murderer. A mutilator." I held Anaklusmos to his other wrist, where Berryn held it outstretched and pinned against the flagstones. "You killed the men I freed, and took Harritt's hands. It's only fitting that you've lost one of yours. Would it be justice, do you think, if I took the other one as well?"

Victarion went silent at that. He scowled up at me, but had nothing to say in his own defence.

I turned back to my crew.

"Percy, please," said Asha. "He's been punished. He stole men from you and paid a thief's price. Don't kill my uncle. He's no threat to you now - his crew has abandoned him."

"It isn't my choice," I said. She made a noise, a sharp inhalation of breath. "Harritt, you're the one he wronged the most out of all of us here. What do you say?"

"Percy!" exclaimed Asha. "I beg you, don't do this. You've taken a head and a hand from my family. Don't take anything more, please."

"Hush, girl," said Damphair. "Judgement lies with the god now."

"No, it doesn't," I said. "It belongs with a man. With Harritt."

Harritt sighed, holding up his mutilated arms and staring at them. A long moment passed, and a complicated look passed across his face, anger and sorrow and more besides.

"End it, you miserly pissant," snarled Victarion. "Kill me as you're killing the Ironborn."

Harritt straightened, his expression changing into one of resolve. He folded what was left of his arms, and looked down at Victarion.

"If the decision is mine, then I choose that you share in my suffering, Greyjoy," he said. "You can bear the torture of life as a cripple, just as I have been sentenced to." He glanced at Asha, and then at me, and sighed again. "But it would not do to raise the Lady Reaper of Pyke and make her your enemy the next moment. Let him go."

Berryn released Victarion and stepped back. The dismembered captain stood, unsteadily, and took two staggering steps forward.

"A woman can never rule the Iron Islands. You are weak," he spat. Harritt's eyes narrowed.

"No," he replied. "I have all the strength of mercy, as Percy has taught me. I'm not so weak that I need to indulge in revenge at any cost. I can let you go, and we will be stronger for it."

-x-x-x-

After Victarion's crew had left, we retired to Asha's study in the floors above the smoky great hall. Andrik guided most of my men away at my direction. This would be better without my men crowding around me. Asha had chosen to speak to me without guards hovering nearby and watching my every move, so it was only fair that I return the gesture of trust.

Her face had been impassive, save for when she had pleaded for her uncle's life. I was having a hard time reading her reaction to her father's death. He had been a hard man, but I was certain that she had loved him nonetheless.

Harritt sat beside me, and Damphair took a seat between us and Asha.

I had asked Harritt to come with us. He couldn't fight anymore, but I could include him in our council. I could keep him involved, make sure that he knew he mattered.

It was the only way he stood a chance of getting through this.

"I'm surprised at you, nuncle," said Asha, addressing Damphair first of all. "You always clung to the Old Ways as fiercely as father did. He was willing to see me as a substitute for the sons he had lost, but even he would never consider a woman sitting the Seastone Chair."

Damphair raised his palms, sitting ramrod straight instead of leaning into the plush softness of the chair.

"It's something we often discussed, after his sons died in the rebellion," he said. "Without any male heirs left, the strength of the Greyjoys was in you. He never would have offered you the Seastone Chair, but he believed whichever man he married you off to would just be a catspaw with a title, while you would rule in truth."

"Is that so?" she asked, leaning forwards. She steepled her hands, resting her chin on them with a thoughtful look. "I wouldn't have expected you to like that idea."

"No," he said. "The Lord Reaper must be the Lord Reaper. No weak men who could be overruled by their wife deserves to rule the Ironborn. Such a notion is a mockery. But still," he said, and paused, looking at me. "Percy is changing everything we know to be true."

"He is," said Asha, a dark look passing over her face. She scowled for a moment, but then schooled her face back to neutrality.

"I'm sorry about your father," I said awkwardly. It wasn't enough. It couldn't be enough. But I felt like I had to say something, even if it was woefully inadequate.

Asha snorted.

"You've given me the Iron Islands," she said. "Don't apologise for that."

Her words were all pragmatic and mercenary, but I saw her hands clenched into fists in her lap as she sat back upright again, and the ease went out of her posture.

"One thing I don't understand," said Harritt, speaking up for the first time. "Asha isn't the last of the Greyjoy line. Damphair has given up his heritage to serve the Drowned God, but Theon is alive and well. He's almost a man grown by now, over in Winterfell."

"Hah!" barked Damphair. "Grown into greenland softness as Stark's pet. Theon may be alive, but he's scarcely an Ironborn by now. Less of one by the time Stark releases him from fostering. The man swore to keep him hostage for years."

"For a decade," replied Asha. "Stark may have been willing to let him come home early, if he knew that he was needed to take Father's place."

I shook my head.

"No, that wouldn't do. How far is Winterfell from here?" I asked rhetorically. "How long would it take Theon to reach us here, even if we sent word right away?"

"If he left immediately, it would be weeks with a good wind," said Asha.

"More like months, in truth," said Damphair. "Stark wouldn't so much as piss across the border without the king's permission. If he had such a notion, he would ask for permission. Even if Baratheon was inclined to grant the request, how long would it take before it reached the attention of that bloated drunkard?"

"Exactly," I said. "Pyke needs its Lady Reaper now. I don't want to set off a war of succession as every lord in the islands tries to lay claim to the Seastone Chair. Now there is no doubt as to who rules. It's Asha."

"Because you say so," said Harritt.

"Because I say so," I agreed. Maybe that was a touch despotic of me, but something needed to be done, so I had done it. "I could have claimed the islands myself through right of conquest, but that's not who I am. I don't want to rule. I killed Balon to free the people from him, not to take them for myself."

"I won't forgive you for killing my father so long as I live," swore Asha. "I understand why you did it, and I might have killed any man who harmed the people under my protection, too. Any man. Even you. I will protect my people from you if I have to. If I have to, I will travel to Old Valyria and petition the elder gods to visit their doom upon you. I will work with you for the sake of my people, but if your existence brings them anything but prosperity, I will see it ended."

"Asha, do not anger him!" urged Damphair.

"I'm not really an angry person," I said to disbelieving looks.

"You banished the Storm God's attack in your rage at him for endangering your ship," said Damphair. "Your wrath was greater than the storm itself."

"And you levelled a castle in your anger at Lord Balon," added Harritt dryly.

I shrugged.

"Okay, but except for those times, I'm not really an angry person," I said. "I only really get mad when somebody tries to hurt someone I care about."

Asha went over to a sideboard which fixed against the wall. A number of bottles were clustered on it, and stacks of goblets were on a shelf beneath.

"Do you like wine?" she asked, and poured a drink for herself. I shook my head. She grunted in response, and came back to where we sat without offering one to Harritt or Damphair. Her uncle's lip curled, and he looked at the goblet in distaste.

"Why did your sword pass through Berryn like that?" asked Harritt, suddenly. "Is that some magic of yours, or a trait of the metal itself?"

I drew Anaklusmos from the air, and laid it across my knees. I studied the gleaming bronze, and pondered his question. The honest answer was that I didn't know. Back home, celestial bronze pass through mortals like smoke, as it had done with Berryn, and Baerag days before. But here I had seen it cut people. I had killed with it. It was just my crew who hadn't been harmed.

"A bit of both, I think," I said slowly. "This is celestial bronze. It's a magic sword, and it doesn't act like normal weapons. Where I come from, it's used to fight monsters. It will harm them but cannot touch mortals. It's been acting different since I came to Westeros, though."

"In what way?" he asked. "Do you mean the way you summon it out of the air?"

"No, that's part of the sword's magic," I said. "It was a hairpin, originally. But then it was imbued with divine power so that a hero could use it to fight. My cousin, actually."

I turned the sword over, examining the way the light glinted off its razor edge. It didn't just reflect the light, it seemed to enhance it. The bronze sheen danced like firelight, lit with an inner animating force. I could almost believe it was alive.

"It seems like my sword doesn't harm the people who are loyal to me," I said. "The ones who-" I broke off, uncertain how to finish the thought. I had a feeling I knew what the difference between Berryn, Baerag, and the others I'd sliced open was, but saying it out loud felt absurd and presumptuous.

"Those who worship you remain unharmed," finished Damphair. I sighed in disgust, and nodded.

"Yeah," I said weakly. "That."

"A fitting weapon for a just god," he declared. "Ironborn do not shed the blood of Ironborn. We do not cannibalise our own."

"Do you own any other weapons?" asked Asha.

"No."

She unstrapped the sheath holding her dirk to her thigh, and tossed the bundle of leather and steel at me. It landed on top of Anaklusmos, and I dismissed my sword with a thought. I picked up the dirk, the leather straps of its holster still warm from Asha's body.

"What's this for?" I asked. "Anaklusmos is good enough to defend myself with. I don't need another weapon."

"Your sword is made out of sunsteel. Celestial bronze, however you wish to call it. It's not iron."

Damphair nodded gravely, as if he understood. So did Harritt. My brows furrowed in confusion.

"So?"

"You'll need a piece of iron for the fealty ceremony," she said. "You've turned enough of our traditions on their heads already. It'll cause trouble with the lords when they come to swear their oaths if they see you using a piece of bronze to make yours, no matter how fine a blade it might be."

My confusion only deepened. This was the first I'd heard of a fealty ceremony. It was easy enough to figure out from context, and it made sense that the locals would come to pledge their allegiance to their new liege lord, but I didn't understand what place I would have there. Unless - oh. No, that's not happening.

"Asha," I said, looking her firmly in the eye. "I'm not pledging fealty to you."


	19. Chapter 19

Maester Murenmure was a sallow-featured man with greasy black hair swept back across his scalp and ears. It had been scraped back with a comb, and I could see how far his hairline had receded.

I felt a bit uneasy, faced with the local equivalent of a doctor and finding him to look remarkably unhealthy himself. If he couldn't keep himself in good health, how could he hope to look after someone else?

But he was all we had. With the death of Asha's favoured maester, she had sent off a raven herself to request the loan of House Goodbrother's. Murenmure had shown up on a ship a few days later.

He pulled the last strap into place and fastened a buckle.

"There we are!" he exclaimed, and let go of Harritt's wrist. "That should be secure. It'll hold a fair weight, just don't go knocking it into anything too hard. It's a replacement for your hand, not for your sword."

"It'd be better if it could hold a sword," muttered Harritt, and swung the hook through the air, testing its weight.

Murenmure puckered his lips and frowned, glancing over at Harritt's other stump.

"Well, for the other arm we could try to fit some kind of weapon," he said dubiously. "You won't have the fine control for good swordsmanship, not without fingers, but perhaps some kind of maul would work."

Harritt swiped the hook at the maester, and the greasy man leapt out of the way.

"Enough of that!" barked Harritt. "Bad enough that you've sewn this fool contraption onto my arm. I don't want another. Who ever heard of a warrior who had two hooks for hands? Bah!"

"Maybe people will do, one day," I said evenly. "Once you've gone back out there and accomplished deeds worth telling tales about."

The door banged open as Baerag rushed in, letting the stink of fishy air waft in from the kitchens. I wrinkled my nose. Having a sickroom which smelt of fish was not conducive to a swift recovery, I felt. For a son of Poseidon I was really not keen on eating fish. It was a necessity, sometimes. Travel at sea didn't leave many options. But the smell? The smell of fish was never necessary.

Gah.

"Baerag," said Harritt, inclining his head in greeting. "Would you like to shake my hand?" He proffered his hook, and Baerag grasped it without thinking. He let go a moment later with a yelp, and Harritt cackled.

Baerag stuck the meat of his thumb in his hand.

"That's sharp," he said ruefully.

"It's new," said Murenmure. "It'll dull with use. You can sharpen it to a point if you want, or let it wear down so it's safer to be around. Your hand, your choice."

"Nothing about this was my choice," spat Harritt, and then he closed his eyes. I saw his visibly swallow, and then he pushed himself up out of his sickbed. "So what has you all in a clamour, boy?" he asked.

"There's a petitioner here," he said.

"So the Greyjoy is sitting on her chair, in her hall," said Harritt. "What brings you here?"

"He doesn't want to speak to the Greyjoy," said Baerag. "He's asking for Lodos."

"Who's he asking for?" I said sternly. Baerag sighed, and rolled his eyes.

"He's asking for Percy," he repeated. Good. That was better. They'd learn sooner or later, or they were getting dunked in a tidal pool to have crabs pinch their eyes.

-x-x-x-

The great hall of Pyke was full of people. Asha, Damphair, and a collection of the keepguard stood in session at one end of the hall. A line of petitioners snaked its way down between the trestle tables. It seemed that not everyone in attendance had a plea to bring before their lord, however, as many of them were sitting or standing around the hall, either in support of a petitioner or just here to gawk.

Bloody tourists.

"Percy Jackson approaches!" shouted Berryn, and hammered the butt of his spear into the ground.

Every eye in the room turned to us.

"That's the last time I ask you for discretion," I groused.

"And every time I show you the respect you deserve, not the meekness you ask for," replied Berryn. He winked, and slammed his spear into the ground once more.

"Behold Lodos!" he cried. "Behold the son of God!"

I groaned.

The whispers in the hall were deafening. The guards slouching on either side of Asha's dais straightened at my approach. I felt a tug on my back, and twisted my head to look behind me.

A woman let go of my shirt, and bobbed back into the crowd with a guilty expression. Another woman reached out to touch her, and I heard her whisper my name.

"Percy Jackson," said Asha as I stepped up onto the dais.

"Asha Greyjoy," I replied.

One man stood at the foot of the dais, wringing a hat between his hands in front of a protruding gut. He wasn't fat in any other dimension, but he had a stomach, and his arms were scrawny compared to the battle-hardened muscles of the guard who stood beside him to prevent him from coming any closer to the dais.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Can't you see?" said Asha with a scowl. "This is the day when the smallfolk bring their requests before the Lord Reaper. But apparently the word of the Reaper isn't enough for them," she finished, raising her voice so the petitioners could hear. The man standing in front of us cringed, and twisted his hat into a knot so tight I was surprised it didn't rip in two.

"You are the legitimacy from which Asha's rule originates," said Damphair. "All here know that she sits the Seastone Chair by your will. This man is unhappy with the Lady Reaper's judgement. He has called upon that authority to beg for your aid."

Huh. That was weird. I studied Asha, and her face was still in the impassive mask she'd taken to wearing since Balon's death. She caught me looking, and returned my gaze. The mask faltered, just for a moment, and she looked pissed off.

Ah, there she was. I was worried for a minute there.

"I wouldn't think you'd stand for a peasant challenging your authority like that," I said. She nodded in agreement, drumming her fingers on the arm of the throne.

"Normally I would not," she said. "This was not the first petitioner to demand your presence when I made a judgement they did not want." Her mouth twisted, and I saw the frustration in the turn of her lips.

Damphair cleared his throat.

"Many men have asked for you today. Indeed, some of these petitioners have not come to beg a boon or judgement from the Greyjoy, but rather just asked to see you. They have all been turned away."

"So what makes this one different?" I asked.

"I'm not going to bow my head and let the smallfolk run begging to you every time they disagree with me," said Asha. "But if I can get one speck of use out of you to benefit my people, I'll seize the opportunity."

She turned to the petitioner who was cowering at the sound of our conversation, shoulders hunched and posture weak as he tried to make himself small. He looked terrified, but didn't take so much as a single step towards the exit. He was committed to his course of action. Enough to challenge his liege-lady in front of an audience. Enough to demand the attention of a god to aid him.

I wondered what in Poseidon's name could be so important.

"You," she demanded, voice loud and harsh. He flinched. Of course he did. "Tell Percy what you told me. Make your damned request."

He shuffled on the spot, and stuttered. The guard beside him whacked him in the small of the back with the flat of his hand.

"Speak, little man!" the guard said, and a few in the crowd laughed.

My stomach turned to see the man humiliated in front of so many people. He looked like he was about to piss himself. His face was pale, and his eyes darted between me and Asha and Damphair.

I made my way over to him, stepping down from the dais.

When I was in front of him, I caught his hands to prevent him from scrunching the hat up any further. I smiled, and squeezed his hands, and pulled them apart so his fearful fidgeting would stop.

"Tell me," I said softly. "Why did you ask for me?"

"They keep asking for more, but I don't got no more," he said quickly, his voice choked up and the words stumbling over themselves as they fell out of his mouth. I could hardly tell if it was his thick accent or nervousness making him swallow odd syllables, but his speech was hard to understand.

"Who keeps asking for more?" I asked. "Start at the beginning."

He swallowed, and nodded.

"It's Pollon's crew, milord," he said. "They keep askin' for coin, and I give it to them, but it's never enough. Mikkel heard me talkin' in the tavern, sayin' as you would put a stop to them and their ways. I said that Lodos had risen up from the sea, as you like. I said God was here to judge us as honest men and crooks, and set the islands to rights, and he didn't like it. They beat me, milord, and the next time they came to collect they said I owed 'em double."

I frowned. Had somebody mugged this man for speaking in favour of me? I didn't like the idea of excited peasants sitting in their taverns and gossiping about how I was swooping in to solve all the petty woes of their lives. That was an impossible burden to bear. There were wrongs around here that I intended to correct, but I couldn't sort out everyone's life. Not the little problems of ordinary lives. They'd carry on happening no matter what sort of cultural revolution I could swing into play.

"Are you saying that they robbed you?" I asked, probing for more information. He opened his mouth as if to answer, and then Asha interrupted before he could answer. She laughed, and many in the hall laughed with her.

"Oh, no, Percy. Nobody robbed him. Go on, man, tell him the rest," she urged.

I spared her a scolding look. There was no need to be unpleasant, especially when the man was so clearly shaken.

"What is it?" I asked, my voice as gentle as I could make it. It was odd to coddle a grown man so, but he was obviously not a warrior, yet surrounded by them. Obviously not nobility, yet in the castle of his lord and faced with the son of his god. A delicate touch was a small kindness I could offer in such an alien and terrifying situation for the poor guy.

"They's robbers of a sort, milord," he said hesitantly. "Only, they don't actually rob me, see. They come by once a turn of the moon to collect their coin. So long as I pay up every time, Pollon makes sure nobody robs me. His crew have the run of the timber district."

"A protection racket," I said grimly. Parasites preying on the weak, taking a cut from people who could scarcely spare it. And worst of all, they claimed it was protection money. As if they were offering a noble service, helping people.

"Aye, milord," he said. "An', An' if I don't manage to pay double, they's going to make me pay elsewise. Smash up my shop. Burn my stock." He swallowed, and gave me a pleading look. "They might take my Elsie, my daughter."

"What's the penalty for extortion in the Iron Islands?" I asked Asha. She shook her head.

"There is none," she said.

"What?" I exclaimed in disbelief. "But extortion is a crime, surely. It's the same as theft. The threat of force is just another kind of force. It's only one step away from cutting his pursestrings and taking it outright."

Damphair snorted, and took a swig from his waterskin. I really hoped that it wasn't salt-water again. That couldn't be good for him.

"Any man weak enough to give his coin away deserves to lose it," he declared. "That's the way of the Ironborn. Defend your pride or lose it. Defend your women or lose them. Defend your coin, or you will surely lose it."

The petitioner began to wring his hat again, and I sighed.

"So that's why you summoned me," I said. Asha nodded.

"I'm preparing for the lords of the Iron Islands to descend on Pyke for the oath-giving ceremony," she said. "I have no men to spare, even had a crime been committed. By the laws of the Iron Islands, I have no reason to intercede in this matter."

"What is right is not the same as what is legal," I argued. Asha gave me a long, hard look. At last she sighed, and nodded, leaning to prop her head up on one hand, her elbow resting on the arm of the Seastone Chair.

"That's why I was willing to call you to hear this petition," she said, and sighed. She closed her eyes and rubbed at them with the back of her hand. "Perhaps you have that luxury."

-x-x-x-

The petitioners name was Faryn. He ran a shop in Lordsport which sold wooden household items. They were barely furniture. His stock consisted of crockery, cups and plates and bowls. He sold candlesticks and bottle racks and all sorts of miscellania like hooks and rods and shelves.

Harritt, Baerag and I followed him into his shop.

"Elsie!" he cried, and the girl sitting behind the counter tilted her head.

"Papa?" she asked. "Where have you been?"

"At Pyke," he replied.

"Oh, Papa," she said unhappily, and sighed. "I told you not to bother the Greyjoy. Nobody's going to help us. We're merchants. The Greyjoys have never respected anyone who made a living with gold instead of iron." She looked at us uneasily, and then back to her father. She stood up from her chair, and made her way around the counter to greet her father.

"I've found us some help, little bird," he said. She took the hat from his hands and hung it from a peg affixed to the wall.

"Who are these men?" she asked. She looked at Harritt's stump and hook, and an unhappy look washed over her. "Please tell me you didn't try to hire mercenaries again. The last time they took your coin and left without helping, remember? This will just be the same, and then we won't have any coin for Pollon."

"What if you didn't need to pay him any more?" I suggested. She looked at me askance, and then continued fussing over her father.

"So we would pay you instead?" she said scornfully. "Pollon would come chasing after us for what he thinks he's owed, and then we'd be out twice as much. If we had coin enough to pay. Which we don't." She paused in her fussing, and gave her father a worried look. "We don't even have enough to pay Pollon, Papa. If we give him what we have he might give us more time. Hiring these men will just see us robbed twice over."

"I'm not a mercenary," I said dryly. Harritt chuckled by my side, and wandered into the shop. He tried to pick up a wooden cup. It rattled around on the shelf as he struggled to fit his hook around it. After a minute of trying he managed to lift it, and let out a cry of triumph.

I raised an eyebrow and looked at him. He put the cup down, abashed, and I smiled. It was good to see his spirits higher. I couldn't imagine what I'd do if he started on me with his morbid request again.

"They don't want coin, Elsie," said Faryn. He smiled at her, and embraced her tightly. "Our worries are over, just you see.

"Then what are you doing here?" she demanded, hands on her hips even through her father's arms. She pushed him off her, and he beamed at her exasperated face.

"I'm going to wait for this Pollon to show up," I said in a neutral tone. "I'd like to have a quiet word with him. See if we can come to an understanding."

"Pollon doesn't come for the money himself," replied Elsie scornfully. "He sends one of his crew to fetch it. That's the problem. If it was just one man, we could see him off. He has a hundred at his beck and call. If we rock the boat, they'll all come after us and burn the shop to the ground."

"I already told him that, love," said Faryn patiently.

"We're going to stick around and wait for his lackey to show up," I said. "Once he's here we'll get him to show us where his captain is hiding, then we can all go for a little chat."

A few minutes later, we were in the back room of the shop. Elsie had remained out front to mind the counter. Baerag chose to hang around in the front room, just in case somebody unpleasant showed up and she didn't have a chance to call out for us.

I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with the way he was eyeing Elsie at all.

Faryn pulled a dusty bottle of wine down from a high shelf, and opened it on the table in front of us. He beamed at me, and set down three wooden cups. They looked similar to the ones for sale out front, but were more finely carved, and had little narwhals swimming around the rims.

"I'm more of an ale man myself," he said conversationally and slapped his belly. "But this is a special occasion, so it calls for a special drink." He set a glass in front of me and made to pour.

I put my hand over the top of the glass.

"I'm not keen on drinking before battle," I said. Faryn raised an eyebrow, and Harritt scoffed.

"You really aren't from around here, are you?" asked Harritt rhetorically. He banged his hook on the table and laughed. "Well, nevermind that, shopkeep. I'll drink Percy's share if he's not going to join us."

Faryn hesitated, sparing a look for Harritt's missing hand and new hook.

Yeah, I kinda shared his concern. But somehow it pissed me off to see the same feeling on somebody else's face. How dare he judge Harritt? He was just as capable as anyone. Mostly. Oh, okay, maybe not. But he deserves a drink as much as any other man does, at least. Probably more. Much more.

Faryn dug around in the back of a set of drawers, and then eventually pulled out another cup. This one was a completely different shape. Rather than just a hollow tumbler, it was a carven goblet with wide curving handles. He grinned at me and Harritt, and slapped it down onto the table.

"This may be easier for you to lift," he suggested. "Go on, give it a try."

Harritt slipped the point of his hook through one handle, and then the other, nudging the goblet around with the stump of his other arm. He lifted it, and it only wobbled a little bit in the air.

"Hah!" he barked. "Yes, this will do nicely." He dropped his hand, letting the goblet fall back to the tabletop. "You may fill my glass, goodman," he declared, and Faryn gladly obliged.

Harritt lifted the goblet to his mouth and tilted it. It went too far, and poured more wine on his chin than in his mouth. I caught it with my power, winding the liquid through the air and back into the vessel. Harritt looked at me out of the corner of his eye, and winked.

Once he had drained the goblet dry, he banged it back down on the table and wiped his mouth on his upper arm.

"Now that's a vintage," he said, and Faryn poured him another before I could stop him.

Oh well. If he got too drunk to stand, that was a perfect excuse to leave him here instead of hauling him into a potential combat situation. That seemed dangerous, but he had asked to come, and I was worried about how he might feel if I abandoned him because his disability was inconvenient.

I would have to learn to work around it, just as he had. Poseidon knows it'll be an easier job for me than for him.

"I - I wanted to ask, milord," stammered Faryn, some time later.

"Ask your question, goodman!" bellowed Harritt, startling drunk for the half a bottle of wine he'd drunk over the past few hours. "Percy isn't going to smite you for speaking up. He's no arrogant lord. He's so merciful it's cruel." He picked up his goblet again, and sniffed in annoyance to find it empty.

"What made you come to the Iron Islands now? I would have thought the rebellion would have brought you, if anything. But that was years ago."

"I was busy fighting in a war between the gods and titans when Balon Greyjoy rebelled against the greenlander crown," I said. "I didn't mean to come here. Not really. I was exploring the sea, trying to stretch my abilities as far as they could go. I found a passage from the world I grew up in to the Sunset Sea, and when I came through it, Damphair found me on the beach."

"A passage?" he asked, and furrowed his brows.

Harritt leaned forwards now, as well. His breath was heavy with the reek of wine, but his eyes were alert.

"Does the passage go both ways?" he asked. "Would I be able to travel through and visit the realm of the gods?"

I smiled.

"It's at the bottom of the sea. You wouldn't be able to survive travelling through, not as you are now. It's still there, though. If you found a way to breathe and survive the pressure of thousands of tonnes of water on you, you might be able to pass through."

"Where is it?" he asked. "Is it nearby, or did you have to travel far to reach us?"

I shrugged, and tried to think back. My memory of the transition between worlds was hazy. It had been an incredibly painful and overwhelming experience. Even my body wasn't built to handle that kind of punishment. It had nearly killed me. Probably would have, if it hadn't been underwater.

"I think it's wherever I want it to be," I said slowly, mulling it over. "I think it might be like my sword," I said, and summoned Anaklusmos to demonstrate. Faryn jerked back with a gasp, his hand flying to his mouth, and I realised that he had never seen my sword before.

"Is that a godly weapon?" he asked, eyes wide with excitement. I nodded. "Can I - may I touch it?"

I couldn't help it. I laughed. For a moment, his expression was almost like Baerag's.

"Sure, why not," I said. Faryn reached out with a finger and pressed it onto the flat of my celestial bronze weapon. He opened his mouth, a low, quiet sound escaping from him as he exhaled rapidly. He reached further forwards, and placed his open palm on my sword.

-x-x-x-

"Percy!" shouted Baerag. "They're here."

There was a muffled thud from the other room, and I heard Elsie cry out.

I was through the door with Anaklusmos in my hand before Baerag had finished speaking.

Three men were in the shop. One of them stood over Elsie, who cowered against a wall. There was a bright red mark on her face where he had struck her. Baerag was struggling to reach her, but the other two men were holding him back. One of them held a long knife, no match to his sword, but the other thug was holding a crossbow.

Great. I didn't even think there would be crossbows in this world. When were they even invented? I was certain they were a modern thing. They definitely didn't exist back in Ancient Greece, but a lot of time had passed since then.

I grimaced. This place wasn't the same world I came from. I couldn't assume things would be the same just because it had a superficial resemblance to the Europe of hundreds of years ago.

"Back off or your friend dies," the thug holding the crossbow demanded. His face and fists were covered in small, ugly scars. It looks as though he'd spent a lifetime bare-knuckle boxing, and losing. I snorted.

"Try it," I suggested.

He fired a bolt.

I crossed the distance in a heartbeat, and cut the bolt out of the air. Twin sticks of wood clattered to the floor, and I slowly turned Anaklusmos until it was pointing at the man's chest.

"I'll wait for you to reload if you want to try again," I offered. He swore, and scrabbled at a pouch on his hip, fingers bouncing numbly off the clasp as he tried to open it.

Baerag rushed the man holding a knife with his shoulder. His sword was still in his hand, so he shoved his opponent off-balance and then twisted to run him through. It was a good, efficient motion. There was no hopping back to get into a stance, or pause between one movement and the next. Every action flowed together, muscle and iron dancing together in a single step. It was brutal and it was elegant. I felt a burst of pride at how far he'd come.

He planted a foot on his foe's hip, and shoved back to yank his sword out. He pulled his arm back as if to begin another attack, but then used the momentum to propel himself over to the other side of the room.

His swing missed, but he crashed full-bodied into the man who was menacing Elsie. She shrieked as the men moved past her, and flinched away.

Baerag caught his wrist between their bodies in an awkward angle, and dropped his sword. He cursed out loud, but grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and wrestled him to the ground. They fell to their knees, and then Baerag pushed harder, and he fell to the floor. His foe slammed face-first into the timbers, and groaned.

I think Baerag must have taken the assault on the girl he'd been chatting up all afternoon personally, because he didn't stop there. He grabbed a fistful of hair, yanked the man's head back, and smashed into the floor again. And again. And again. Only then did he release his grip, and stand back up, panting.

He looked at Elsie, his face red from exertion. He tried to say something, but just panted for breath. She clung onto him, burying her face in his chest, and words were no longer necessary.

"I don't have all day, you know," I said to the crossbowman, urging him onwards. After what seemed like an eternity, he managed to extract another crossbow bolt. He began to fit it to his weapon. He nearly dropped the bolt, catching it just by the tips of his fingers.

I could see sweat beading on his forehead. He bent over the crossbow as he tried to slide it into place, and I sighed. This was just painful to watch.

My sword smashed through his crossbow. I had grown bored of waiting. He howled in pain, and I saw that I had taken the first joint of one of his thumbs when I had cut through the mechanism of wood and steel.

"If only you'd been a little quicker," I said mockingly. "You could have had another shot at me. Wouldn't you have liked to be the man who killed Percy Jackson?"

I saw the blood drain from his face, and he tried to back away, holding up his hands in surrender. Blood oozed from the tip of his thumb, running down the side of his hands to drip on the shattered remains of his crossbow. He tripped, and fell on his ass.

I grinned, and knelt down to speak to him in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Nah, you wouldn't have been able to hit me anyway. Don't blame yourself. You couldn't have changed the outcome of this even if you weren't a useless shit."

He tried to swing a punch at me. I caught it in mid-air and squeezed. He screamed as the bones creaked and his wounded thumb was crushed against his knuckles, but I made sure to hold back so that none of the delicate little bones in his hand broke. I was saving that for after, in case he needed some extra motivation.

"Do you want to live?" I asked him.

He nodded furiously, moisture appearing in the corners of hs eyes. I sincerely hoped they were tears of pain. I couldn't be dealing with a criminal who burst into tears when caught in the act.

"Then you're going to take me to your captain," I said.

He looked around fearfully.

"I don't have a captain!" he exclaimed. "I'm not a sailor." Oh dear. What a naughty little liar. I squeezed his hand, and this time I felt bones shatter. His scream had a higher pitch, this time. I felt a sour taste rise in my throat at the brutality, and pushed it down. I wasn't doing this for fun. There was a tiny, sick part of me which enjoyed it, which enjoyed watching this social parasite howl.

That wasn't me. That was just adrenaline and anger and blood.

"Let's try again without the lies," I suggested. I poked my sword into the cleft where his collarbones met, not quite hard enough to draw blood. "I'm looking for Captain Pollon. I know you're one of his crew. Take me to him, or I'll take your head off and ask your friend over there when he wakes up."

If he woke up. Which I wasn't certain of, given how hard Baerag had hammered his head into the floorboards. Hopefully this guy would be a bit more forthcoming now that he'd seen what happened when he lied.

"I'm telling you the truth," the man begged. "I work for him, but Pollon's not a captain. We work the town, not the sea."

Oh. Oops. I felt a little bit guilty for breaking his hand, then. I tried not to let it show on my face.

"Take me to him," I said.

"The whole crew will be with him, near enough," he said. "You'd need an army if you wanted to raid his hall."

I dismissed Anaklusmos and stood, stretching my head to and fro to ease the crick in my neck. I exchanged a look with Baerag over the top of Elsie's shoulder. He gave me a fierce grin, and I nodded back at him.

"I don't really need an army," I mused. I leaned down to grab the fallen man, and hauled him upright by his collar. He whimpered. "But as it so happens, my army is waiting around the corner."


	20. Chapter 20

There was a lumber yard just a couple of streets away from Faryn's shop. It was called the timber district for a reason, after all.

The yard was mostly empty. Stacks of shaped planks were piled up against the eastern wall, and a squat stone building stood in one corner with a hefty iron padlock on the door.

More importantly, this was where my crew were waiting. Andrik stood still and grim at the head of a line of men. They came up to him, one by one, and presented their weapons for inspection. He turned them this way and that, made small comments I couldn't hear from this distance, and then handed them back to the greenhorn sailors he was training to fight.

Berryn was sitting on a heap of fallen planks, a similar number of men crowded around him. He lifted a shield, and balanced it against his forearm, gesturing for his audience to watch. He demonstrated a way of holding the shield so that it could be used as both a bulwark to defend and a weapon to push back foes.

It was the first thing he'd tried to drill into the heads of the new men. I hoped that he was just going through the motions now to help set them at ease. Leading an untested crew into a fight is a tricky enough thing when they know what they're doing.

I would do my best to look out for them, of course, but any man who didn't know how to hold his shield would probably die before I had a chance to intervene.

"I should be doing this by myself," I muttered, shaking my head.

Harritt scoffed, and whacked me with the back of his hook.

"What is the point of having a crew if you won't let them work for you?" he asked. I rubbed the back of my head ruefully, but couldn't deny that he had a point.

"I could slip in and out in a moment," I said. "I could take out Pollon from where he stands in the middle of a crowd of his thugs, and nobody would realise it had happened until they stepped in a pool of his blood."

"I don't doubt it," said Harritt. "But this is about more than just one man, isn't it?"

I sighed, and nodded.

Pollon's so-called crew was really just a gang terrorising this district of Lordsport. They preyed only on the weak, so the strong didn't care. The smallfolk suffered, but the Ironborn didn't give a damn.

In a twisted sort of way I could see their logic. I didn't agree with it, but I could understand it. To the minds of the Ironborn, extortion was just an extension of the natural order of things. The weak were a resource for the strong to exploit as they wished. The reasoning went that you would only deserve to be free from harm if you had the strength to fight back and take that safety for yourself.

This is how the downtrodden stay buried in the muck, trampled on by every predator that passes by.

The thing is, Pollon had gone far beyond threatening shopkeepers into paying protection money. The locals might try arguing that the victims were purchasing a legitimate service, and had always had the option of not buying protection if they didn't want it.

People who didn't pay got hurt. The sum of coin owed would change at the gangleader's whim, to punish his victims for defiance, or take a cut of any prosperity. Or just plain out of spite.

Faryn had come to beg me for help because he was afraid. He feared that his shop would be burnt down, his daughter stolen and abused. This wasn't because he was a coward leaping at shadows, for all that he wasn't a warrior himself. It had taken a different kind of courage to ask for help, and he knew that he needed it because so many other families and business had been destroyed.

Surely it couldn't be profitable to keep killing the people you were squeezing for cash. Well, smart people don't give up a life of perfectly honest piracy to shake down their local shops. It seemed like Pollon was making mistakes all round. The biggest one was coming to my attention.

I placed my hand on my hostage's back and pushed him forward into the yard. He had stopped whimpering, thank Poseidon. A grown man bubbling like a child had been excruciating to listen to, even on the short journey from Faryn's shop.

Andrik noticed us and handed an axe back to a round-cheeked sailor wearing a shirt of chainmail.

"Rise, you motherless dogs!" he bellowed, and stomped his way over to me. The men followed, Berryn's lot falling in stride beside them as well. They weren't exactly standing to attention with military precision, but they were clustered around me in a deliberate sort of clump.

"How are they?" I asked. Andrik spared a glance for the untidy ranks behind him, and nodded.

"Ready as they'll ever be," he said gruffly. "Some men have piss in their veins instead of blood, and you can never tell until the axes are out. The only test left for them is first blood, now."

The round-cheeked man cheered and rattled his axe against his shield. A couple of the others banged their weapons together half-heartedly, but most of them just stood in silence. He quietened down, and shuffled his feet awkwardly.

Berryn cleared his throat and stepped past him.

"I have something for you, Harritt," he said, holding out the shield he'd been using to demonstrate technique to the rookies earlier. "This strap, here, and this buckle should hold it fast against your arm. You won't be able to pull off any fancy flourishes, but you'll be able to hold the damn thing."

He held the shield out for him, then his eyes flickered to the stump. I saw embarrassment colour his face a moment later as he realised that Harritt wouldn't be able to put the shield on himself. Which was kind of why Berryn had prepared the shield for him.

"Here," he said hurriedly, and held the shield against the other man's arm. "Hold your arm straight. Yes, like that." Berryn pulled a leather thong through the buckle, and fixed into into place. He tugged at it to tighten it, and then fastened another strap further up Harritt's arm.

Harritt held the shield out, bracing it against an invisible blow. He grinned, lowering it and banging his hook against the metal boss, then making a few sharp motions to strike at the air with the shield itself.

"And so I have become half a man again," he declared, and I saw that his eyes were lit with an inner fire which had been absent these past few days. As I saw him return to some of his former vigour, I realised that Baerag had been uncharacteristically quiet all day.

I wondered if this was his gentler temperament at work again. Perhaps the idea of killing his kinsmen was weighing on him.

"How do you feel about this job?" I asked him. He gave me a quizzical look. "About fighting other Ironborn, I mean," I clarified. "I can understand if you're uncomfortable with killing your own people. Anyone who wants to can sit this out, and I won't think less of anyone for it."

Baerag's eyes narrowed, and his hand went to his sword. The crew around us shifted, murmuring to one another.

"No!" he said, insistently. There was actually a trace of anger in his voice. I saw a vein stand out on the side of his neck, and his jaw was clenched. "These bilgerats are no true Ironborn," he said. "Being Ironborn isn't just about being from the Iron Islands. Greenlanders call us all Ironborn, but there are Ironborn and then there are Ironborn. We are the warriors, the reavers, the wolves of the sea. We have nothing in common with these carrion-eaters picking at the bones of the smallfolk."

"So when the law states that no Ironborn may spill the blood of another Ironborn," I mused. "It's only referring to the warrior caste, and not the greater population."

Baerag nodded.

"That's right," he said, and then he hesitated and looked at me with trepidation. "Unless you say otherwise."

-x-x-x-

Using the directions given by my friend the weepy crossbowman, I led my crew through the twisting maze of a town built around selfish bubbles of commerce with no regard for their neighbours or city planning.

Buildings jutted out into the street, making it more of a crooked zigzag than a straight line. Entire sections were fenced off, the property owners encroaching onto the public road in a bid to increase the size of their plots. At one point, the buildings were so close together that we had to line up almost in single file to squeeze through. And this was a road which was supposed to take two wagons passing in opposite directions.

Annabeth would have wanted to raze the whole thing to the ground and rebuild Lordsport with some proper crossroads and junctions. Good thing she wasn't here. Enough of Pyke had been demolished because of my presence already.

From around the bend up ahead, I heard the clip of hooves against cobbles. Jhakho rounded the corner atop a donkey, and cantered up to meet up. He pulled the beast to a stop at the head of our column, and the beast shook itself and huffed from exertion.

I'm sure it was used to working all day, but pulling a heavy load wasn't the same as running at speed.

I squinted, taking a closer look at the animal. The donkey wasn't one of the ones which I'd acquired to pull our wagon, either. Jhakho was grinning like a fool or a man in love from atop his steed. I hoped he hadn't killed anyone to steal the damn thing.

"Great Khal, the ratman spoke true," said Jhakho. "Our enemies await. Something has roused them. They are expecting us."

"Well, that'll save me having to knock," I muttered.

"The way is shut. The doors are barred. They have locked themselves inside like rabbits in a trap."

"I could go for a bit of coney," said Andrik, and he hefted his greatsword across his shoulders. The round-cheeked sailor from before cackled at his words, and for the first time I saw a resemblance between the two of them. It was faint, with the younger man all boyish flab instead of hard muscle, and more than a foot shorter. Still, there was something in the set of their jaw and angle of their cheekbones which looked alike.

Once we were around the corner, I could see the gang's hangout plain as day. It was a gaudy building compared to the workshops and warehouses surrounding it, made of long, thin fired bricks instead of stone and timber. As I grew closer, I saw that the speckling of the bricks' colour came from tiny pebbles scattered inside the blocks.

The doorway was a broad arch containing solid panels of oak. They were banded with black iron, reinforced at the edges and in a horizontal line across the centre. Perfect. Double-doors meant that we could get twice as many men through the portal at once. The biggest danger to us was the bottleneck into the building. Once we were in, it was just a case of mopping up the trash.

Baerag took the iron hoop which acted as a door handle, and tried to push it open. The heavy oak doors thunked together, caught in place by one another as well as an obstacle on the other side.

"Jhakho's right," said Baerag. "They've barred the door." He fingered his sword, and ran his other hand over the surface of the wood. "This is thick and strong. If we go at it, we'll get through eventually, but who knows how long it might take. Is there a back door? Or any windows close enough to the ground for us to climb through?"

I laughed, stepping up to clasp Baerag by the shoulder.

"It's alright," I said. "I've got this." He looked at me curiously, but moved out of my way without questioning.

This was a trick I had only done a couple of times before, and never on something so deliberately sturdy as this. I saw no reason why it wouldn't scale up, however.

I laid my palm flat on the wood, and focused.

I've heard it said that water is the elixir of life. It's the substance at the base of all living things. Men, animals, and plants alike are all made of significant amounts of water.

This oak was dead and dry, but the plant cells still retained some water. I drew it out. Moisture beaded on the surface. It gathered in fat droplets until they grew too big, the surface tension broke, and the water ran in rivulets down the surface of the door.

It looked as though it was sweating. The timbers groaned as they dried. The substance of the door began to break down without water to hold it together. There were cracks inside the wood as the grain of the wood turned into natural fault-lines.

The doors were a sturdy piece of engineering. The metal facing bolted around the edges held the whole thing together, so even as the material was wasting away, the doors remained upright and blocking our passage.

My boot changed that forever.

I kicked the centre of the door. My foot passed through wood which was crumbling into dust, and impacted against the solid bar on the other side. It held for a moment, and I pushed against it with all my weight.

There was a shriek as nails were torn out of the wood, and then the bar went flying off into the hall, carrying its metal brackets with it.

The doors exploded into a cloud of dust and splinters. It blocked the inside of the building from view, but I could hear panicked shouts, and running footsteps. I grinned. Party time.

"Hyah!" shouted Jhakho from somewhere behind me, and I barely got out of the way in time for a great bulk of fur and muscle to charge through the opening.

Jhakho howled a Dothraki battlecry, a high and undulating yodel which sounded more like it came from the throat of a monstrous bird than a man. He spun his axe lightly over his fingers, and leaned out of his saddle to sweep it through the stomach of one of Pollon's men.

The gang was gathered in groups of twos and threes, scattered around the empty hall. They clutched a motley assortment of weapons. There were a few swords, and I saw another crossbow. Most men just had ugly wooden cudgels, and others still had nothing more than a knife.

Andrik roared wordlessly, and thrust his greatsword into the air like a conductor's baton. Harritt and Berryn leapt over the heap of shattered timber, and the crew followed a heartbeat behind them.

Harritt swiped his hook crudely through the air, missing his target by a wide margin. The man sneered, only to have the metal boss of Harritt's shield slammed into his skull as he was distracted. The hook was useless, but Harritt slammed his shield into the man's face again, and again, attempting to beat him to death with the plane of wood.

The first kill was Baerag's. He smashed the hilt of his sword into his foe's face, then followed it up with a harsh kick to the knee. The man stumbled, bowing his head over the wounded limb as he tried to catch himself from falling. With a single smooth motion Baerag spun his sword around and grasped the hilt in both hands. He drove it down through the back of his opponent's neck.

I saw his eyes pop open inhumanly wide, flecks of red blood gathering in the sockets and causing them to bulge outwards. Baerag pushed down further, forcing his dying enemy to the ground.

"Your blood," he panted. "For Lodos!"

The air shimmered in front of me like the heat-haze in a desert oasis. I tried to ignore it, to push through the distraction and engage the men who were all around us. I moved to attack the next group, and my steps were liquid across the floor. Distance was strangely malleable. They were metres away, yet I was among them with a single stride.

I held Anaklusmos out, point low to the ground, and swept her in a wide arc. Three men collapsed, their legs cut out from under them. If I hadn't been looking straight at them, I might have thought that my blow had missed. Anaklusmos passed through them without any more resistance than the air itself offered. They were wispy and insubstantial. I didn't feel a thing.

They screamed, and I knew that they were feeling all kinds of things.

I felt like I was in a dream. Everyone around me was moving so slowly. I turned on the spot, examining every corner of the room. We outnumbered them, almost two to one. I saw my crew working in tandem with one another to harry the gang, separating individuals from their groups and tearing them apart with slow, terrible brutality.

My head was full of clouds and static. I bit the inside of my cheek, hard, and everything suddenly snapped back into focus.

Four men were bearing down on Berryn. Clubs struck his arms and back. He staggered under the force, biting back his cries of pain into a muffled grunt through clenched teeth. He reeled back, reaching up with one hand to grasp his driftwood amulet. His lips moved.

Anaklusmos was buried in the chest of one of his attackers a heartbeat later. I left my sword there, embedded in the body of the fallen man, and grabbed his comrade with both hands. I slammed my forehead into his face, and threw him bodily to the ground.

He didn't move.

The other two moved to attack me.

Beyond them, I saw Harritt pressing his attack against one of Pollon's men. He screamed, low and terrible, sounding more like a wounded animal than a man. He had no weapon but his shield. That was all he needed. He pushed them away in a fury, battering them with the piece of wood.

The boss caught his foe just over his eye, tearing a chunk of flesh loose. The wounded man clasped a hand to it, but blood ran through his fingers and blinded him in one eye.

He roared, and struck out with his sword. Although he was one of the few men in the gang with a proper piece of steel in his hands, he was wielding it like a club. He held it overhand, both hands closed around the hilt, and brought it down on Harritt's shield with all his weight behind it.

Harritt staggered under the impact, dropping to one knee.

The sword bit into the shield and stuck fast. He tried to pull it out, but it wouldn't move. The lowlife tried to tug at it to no avail, and all he accomplished was to give Harritt a moment to catch his breath.

Harritt leapt up, his arm and shoulder tucked under the shield to put the full force of his body behind it. The hilt of the sword caught in his foe's gut, and the blade was pushed down into the wood at an angle. I heard the wood crack as a board in the shield snapped in half, and then another crack followed immediately after as the broken shield was hammered into the unarmed man's face.

Half of the shield dangled loosely from a broken spar. Harritt grimaced, and crouched down to set his foot on top of it. He stamped down hard, and broke the shield properly in half.

Most of the armament lay broken on the floor now. All that remained was a quarter-moon of wood strapped and buckled onto his arm. The broken end of the shield protruded alongside Harritt's wrist, splintered planks reaching out into a point.

Harritt didn't waste a moment. He span around, and charged straight for me and Berryn. As I'd been watching Harritt, I'd disarmed one of the remaining men. I was about to do the same on the last one when Harritt came barrelling across the hall and crashed into him.

The two men fell to the ground in a heap, with Harritt on top. He groaned, and struggled to his feet.

The broken spar from his shield shone wetly with blood. Pollon's thug lay moaning on the floor with a patch of scarlet spreading across his shirt.

Harritt panted, and cast about wildly, looking for another person to attack. His face was flushed bright red, and I could see his chest heaving rapidly. Ugly purple bruises were already forming on his upper arm where he'd been struck with a club.

"Take it easy, man," I urged him. "It's almost over."

He growled, and tried to pull at one of his shield's buckles with the point of his hook. I reached over to take it from him.

There was murder in his eyes for a moment, and I thought he was going to hit me. But then it passed, and the strap was undone, and I dropped the ruined shield to the ground.

Harritt sighed and rubbed his wrist between his other arm and the side of his body.

"That's the last of them, then," he bit out hoarsely. I saw the way his forearms were scraped red and raw, speckled with splinters and the blood of his foes. Maybe giving him a shield had been a bad idea. I'd been pleased when Berryn suggested it, glad of a way to make Harritt feel like he belonged once more.

I didn't want him to tear the rest of his body apart trying to prove himself.

But he hadn't been performing for me, had he? His furious assault had come from somewhere inside, all the pent up anger and despair lashing out at the nearest target. The target I had so willingly provided.

For a moment, I felt sorry for these crooks. They needed to be put down like a rabid dog. It was for the good of the town, to prevent them from biting anyone else. But just as if they had been diseased animals unaware of what they were doing, I felt sorry for them.

"No, we're not done yet," I said, and sighed. The only men left standing in the hall were mine. I walked over to where a man Baerag had slain lay face-down on the ground. He was heavy and limp. I wedged the toe of my boot under him and levered him over onto his back.

I frowned. No, not him either.

None of the men in here matched the description of Pollon that the shopkeeper had given me.

I exchanged a puzzled glance with Baerag. Harritt looked up.

"What is it?" he asked, lifting his arm to his mouth to try pulling a long splinter out with his teeth. After a second attempt he caught it, and spat the bloody spike out onto the floor.

Something pushed me forwards, a punch to my shoulder. I grunted, and shifted my weight onto my other foot so I wouldn't stagger.

At first I thought it was one of my crew, slapping me on the back with boisterous enthusiasm to celebrate our victory. And then my shoulder began to burn, and sting, and a debilitating pain blossomed outwards.

I reached back, and my fingers moved through warm sticky blood to touch the haft of an arrow.

Odd, I thought. The arrow had hardly hurt at all when it hit.

Only now it was stinging like a hundred wasps crawling under my skin, and I felt the noxious ooze of poison spread through me. My teeth chattered unconsciously, and I felt spots of sudden fire in the pads of my toes and fingers.

My belly turned in on itself, making it hard to breathe. I glanced down, and saw my stomach swelling outwards, distended and bloated. I felt like I had eaten too much, and needed to belch but couldn't. A pressure was building behind my eyes. I tried to breathe in, and it felt like the air moved to the back of my mouth and no further, trapped above a throat which had closed up entirely.

I grabbed the shaft of the arrow and yanked it out with a grunt. This time it hurt. This time it hurt a lot, and when I turned to look at it, I saw that the fucker was barbed. Pieces of stringy flesh clung to the cruel twists of metal, and it gleamed oddly with blood. My blood looked strange, a too-pale colour which caught the light and refracted it like it was full of crushed diamonds.

But I didn't have much time to consider that, because the man who had shot me was standing there in the doorway.

He matched the description I'd been given, and the cowardly tactic of skulking out of sight with a poisoned crossbow matched the character of the scumbag who led this merry band of miscreants.

As soon as our eyes met, he dropped the bow and sprinted away. Some of my crew began to chase after.

"Don't bother," I choked out, struggling to speak past the effects of the poison.

They paused, looking back at me with expressions of concern.

I ran my forefinger over the arrow wound, and tugged at it with my divine power. Controlling poison didn't come naturally, not like water did, but by Poseidon I did not care. Strength of will trumps natural domains, and this would bow to my demands because I wished it to, as it had before, and likely would do again.

The poison burned as it receded, pulling back like the ocean at low tide. I felt the inflammation of my flesh fall back, too, skin cooling and stomach easing until it was all out of me. I moved my hand until it was in front of me, and examined the poison. It clung around the tip of my finger in a globe. Funny, I always pictured poison as green. This was yellow, a thick substance more like a cream or a paste than actual liquid.

"Percy, he shot you in the back!" exclaimed Baerag. "We cannot let him live. That's not just murder, it's heresy!"

"Well, we were trying to kill him," I muttered under my breath. I resisted the urge to say it out loud. I didn't want to undermine him in front of the others - or to encourage people to shoot me, I guess.

"Don't worry," I said, raising my voice so it would carry. I raised it again, pitching it so the disappearing form of Pollon at the end of the street would be able to hear. "He won't get far!"

I flicked my finger, and the poison shot through the air. It struck Pollon on the back of his head, clinging to his hair and seeping through his pores.

I heard him scream, but he didn't fall.

He kept running, his breath becoming more laboured. He rounded the corner, his steps growing slower, and then disappeared behind another building.

I sensed it when he fell. It brought a fierce joy to me, something animal and raw.

Baerag stared at me, seeing something unfamiliar on my face.

"Are you sure?" he asked, hesitance in his voice.

"He's waiting for us," I replied, feeling the poison course through Pollon's veins even as I spoke. He wasn't dead, but had collapsed, unable to breathe through the rapid onset of the poison's effects. I admit, I was giving the poison a little boost to supercharge it and bring the effects to bear a bit quicker. It wouldn't do to let him crawl into a hole to die without anyone knowing, after all.

"Shall we go clean him up?"


	21. Chapter 21

The Great Keep of Pyke was full of Ironborn lords. None of their soldiers or families were present, having been shunted to the other keeps of Pyke for the ceremony. They were waiting in other rooms, in other halls, for us to finish.

A few men who didn't bear the characteristic appearance of Ironborn were also in attendance. By their dress, and the sigils of their houses, I figured that they were outlander lords from the mainland. It was peculiar to see them coming, but I supposed that this was an important moment. Perhaps it was a diplomatic envoy from the neighbours.

Although these greenland lords stood with a boy, nearly a man, who scowled his way through the ritual. His face was tight with fury, and more than once I saw his escort place a restraining hand on him to stop him from coming forth and interrupting. He had pale grey eyes and a sharp edge to his jaw, just like Asha did. I suspected that this was the estranged brother Theon, which in turn would make his escort - who, exactly? Surely not Lord Stark, who was king of the Northern kingdom in all but name, from what I understood.

"Lord Harlaw, come forth," demanded Damphair, and banged his cudgel against the floor.

Drawing his sword, Rodrik the Reader sank to one knee before the Lady Reaper of Pyke, holding the weapon upright by the blade. Axes, daggers, and all manner of bladed instruments had been used by the other men before him.

He took a deep breath, and then began to speak.

"I, Rodrik the Harlaw, swear by the drowning of our Lord God," he proclaimed loudly. "And by the holy iron that I hold, to give you fealty and pledge my loyalty to the house of the name Greyjoy. If ever my hand shall be raised against you in rebellion, I ask that this holy iron shall pierce my heart."

The oath taker then lowered the sword, kissing it at the juncture of haft and blade before sheathing it. Still kneeling, he raised up both hands, clasped together to offer them to Lady Greyjoy. She took the clasped hands between her own and lifted them to her own lips in acceptance.

Her lips brushed his skin briefly, and then she knelt to raise the man to his feet. She then lifted a ceremonial cup, a shallow bowl of beaten metal with a handle on either side, and took a small sip from it.

She handed it to the oath swearing man who drank in turn, his face wrinkling at the taste, and returned the cup. Giving a final bow to Asha, the oath taker then stepped to the side. He walked to the edge of the hall, then retreated to a place on the benches with the lords above him in local precedence, who had sworn first.

"What's in the cup?" I whispered to the man nearest me. We were lined up in single file like schoolchildren, waiting our turn to come to the front and swear an oath. I was almost at the very back, before the greenlanders but behind every one of the Ironborn but Theon, who stood at the end of the room with his escort.

"It would be spirits or wine in the North," he said. He stood tall, his shoulders back with a severe expression on his face behind a beard that was speckled with grey. He looked at me impassively, then the mask broke and I caught the barest hint of a smile. "I was quite drunk by the end when this was my day."

"Your day?" I asked, confused. I looked him up and down, looking for a clue as to who this man was. He wore wool, not silk, but it was finely woven and dyed. For all that the colours were muted, it was patterned with skill. It was not an inexpensive item of clothing, and I took him for a lord of some importance. A silver pin in the shape of a wolf's head sat on his breast, and a heavy two-handed greatsword was slung on his back.

It looked out of place against his finery, but every man in the room was armed. It made sense to carry steel for the ceremony. I wondered if he would be swearing fealty to Asha as well. Did the Ironborn have any colonies or catchments on the mainland?

"Eddard Stark, at your service," he said, inclining his head slightly. Behind him, Theon Greyjoy scoffed and tried to speak, but was hushed by the rangy looking man who stood between him and Stark.

"Huh," I said. "I admit I don't really know how things work in Westeros, but I'm surprised to see a lord paramount visiting these humble Iron Islands of ours." I remembered my manners at the last moment, and awkwardly offered my hand for him to shake. "I mean, Percy Jackson, at yours."

Stark clasped my hand, and nodded at Theon.

"I thought my ward might like to visit his home, given the circumstances. He's as good as one of my own sons, but it's tragic to lose a father at his age. We weren't able to travel in time to make the funeral, but family should be together at a time like this."

I glanced at Theon, who was staring at his sister with an expression I couldn't read. The lean man between us was watching him carefully, and I suddenly felt the tension in the air magnify tenfold.

Oh. And I was the one who'd killed his father.

Realisation of that sank in just as heavily as when Asha had confronted me afterwards.

"There's something my father taught me that I tell my own children," continued Stark. "The lone wolf dies while the pack survives." He glanced back at Theon, and the younger man met his gaze. Theon's expression was cold and angry, but then tiredness passed over his face like a cloud in front of the sun, and he nodded back.

"Krakens don't live in packs," I said, thinking of the distance between the Greyjoys. They had worked closely together, but there was little warmth there. Theirs was a more pragmatic sort of love. Balon had scarcely had room for love at all, save for a little paternal pride in Asha. I remembered how he had ordered Damphair's death at the barest suspicion of insurrection, and how he had slapped Asha for daring to plead for her uncle's life.

But then I looked up at Asha, standing on the dais. She looked small and alone against the vast blankness of the keep's wall, a long line of men all larger than her crowding around. Even with her footing on the raised platform, they were of a height with her or more. She looked uncertain, lost. But then Damphair touched her elbow gently, and she schooled her face back into a bolder smile, gesturing for the next lord to step forwards.

"But even if they don't have packs, I suppose they do sail in crews," I mused, and Stark nodded along with me.

"These Ironborn are a harder people than even we of the North, but no man is an island, even if he lives on one."

The man standing in front of me turned around and shushed us loudly. His disgusted noise of impatience was louder than our words had ever been, and caused a few people to turn around to stare.

I turned back to face the front of the line. Stark chuckled and fell back in line himself.

The Ironborn in front of me was at the very end of the queue, just in front of me and the other outlanders. Figures. The least of the Ironborn is the most fussy about a petty display of respect, and enforces it in an abjectly disrespectful manner. He had a brooch pinned to his clothing, a little like Stark's. Only his was made out of a silver-coloured metal, not silver itself. I figured it for tin or pewter, hewn out of the ground in one of the local mines.

I couldn't even tell what it was. Oh, it was a fish of some kind, and I know all a man could ever wish to about fish. But the thing was so shoddily made I couldn't tell if it was a trout or a tuna.

The line moved forwards slowly. Far too slowly. I groaned, tried to stuff my hands in my pockets, and realised that the scratchy fabric I'd been given by Helwren didn't even have any pockets sewn into it. Of all the modern conveniences to miss, you'd think it would be electricity and indoor plumbing above all. Nope. Not for me, used to life camping in the wilds and blessed with power over water in all kinds of hygienic ways.

I missed pockets.

Not that I really owned much worth carrying around with me. I'd learned the trick of discorporating my sword into the ether entirely a few years ago, with no need to cart around a shiny bronze biro. Almost everything else I owned was back on Earth. People kept trying to give me gifts around these parts, sure, but I couldn't carry swords and axes and crates of food around with me, and I delegated the carrying of coin to my minions.

They had been a little perturbed by that at first. It had started with Andrik. I figured he was already pretty wealthy, so he had no motive to steal things. And then I got annoyed with having to tie a little bag of coins to my belt and having the metal clink and bounce against my hip as I walked, so I tore the damn thing off and shoved it in Baerag's face.

He thought it was a great gesture of trust. Not so. I was just getting irritating. And bruised. Gold is heavy.

After what felt like an eternity, I was at the front of the line. Asha looked unsteady on her feet, and I wondered again what was in that little cup.

From my vantage point at the front I peered forwards to peek inside. Oh, nothing? It was empty. But then Asha tipped a bottle of some clear spirit into it, and even from a few feet away I caught the smell of strong liquor. Damphair unstoppered his trademark waterskin and topped it up.

That's just great.

I could get behind the idea of watering down your spirits so that you could last a heavy drinking session. It was just good sense in this setting, where you couldn't exactly duck behind a table to vomit when it got too much. Using salt-water to water it down, though? That wasn't such a great idea. I didn't like to think how much seawater Asha had drunk today. It wasn't good for you, not if you were mortal.

Perhaps some distant ancestor of the Greyjoys had a touch of something inhuman about them. I had considered whether they were cousins by blood as well as by culture. Perhaps this local cult of Poseidon had formed around one of my half-brothers millennia ago. It would explain a lot.

Asha gave me a wicked grin, and I felt a sudden sense of unease in the pit of my stomach. I saw Damphair whisper something urgently in her ear, and she shook her head.

"Percy Jackson," Damphair proclaimed hurriedly.

Asha held up a hand in front of him, and he closed his mouth before he could finish calling me up.

"Perseus Lodos," she said. "Come forth."

Poseidon sink her ship, she knew exactly what she was doing. The light flickered like I was taking a day trip to an epileptic rave. The room was hushed, a cutting silence through the mutters and murmurs which had been in the crowd thus far.

Lodos settled on me like a funeral shroud.

He looked through my eyes. He opened my hands and stepped onto the dais. I felt dazed and distant, tired to the point of exhaustion yet continuing to move on autopilot, like a marathon runner in the final stretch. It was hard to think. I felt drunk. Not giddy or energetic, but the drunkenness at the end of a night where your mind stills even as your body continues to go through the motions.

I strode onto the dais, crossing the cold flagstone of the hall. My footsteps echoed oddly on the stones, as if floor and boot were both made from sheets of bronze.

"Hail Asha Greyjoy, Lady Reaper of Pyke," I declared. I halted, and looked down at her. She was a few inches shorter than me, but that distance felt infinite. She looked small. Not just in stature, but something deeper. She was wispy and insubstantial in some peculiar way I couldn't quantify. To my eyes, it was as if she was just a dim spectre, not a real person.

I reached out a hand and took the two-handed cup from Asha. She stared up at me, frozen in place and unresisting as I took the drinking vessel from her.

I stared down at her imperiously. She opened her mouth to speak, to continue with the rite she had repeated a hundred times already today. I held up my hand, and it was like a coffin lid slamming shut. Her lips flapped soundlessly.

"Kneel," I demanded.

Asha struggled against an unseen force. Her shoulders slumped and her knees bowed. The urge to obey, to kneel, was visible in her, but she resisted. Her eyes were flecks of grey ice, as stubborn and defiant as any sailor facing the storm which he knows will throw him overboard. Her jaw was clenched tight. Her body shook.

How dare a mortal defy me? She would learn her place or be taught the harder lesson her father had needed.

"Kneel!" I roared, and Asha fell to the ground as if driven by a blow across her back. There was a great noise from elsewhere in the hall, the rumble and thunder of things hitting the floor, but I didn't so much as turn to look. It didn't matter. Nothing else mattered, only this rite, only this moment. My focus was needle-sharp and furious.

Asha picked herself up, shivering like a leaf as she forced herself up onto her knees. She moved slowly, her limbs seeming heavy, as if she was dragging her body through water or quicksand.

"Give the oath, girl!" hissed Damphair. She whipped her head around to look at him in surprise, betrayal written clear across her face. He was standing, though stooped and leaning on his club like it was a staff. His eyes flickered across the crowd behind me, and then back to Asha.

"This ceremony is for me to accept oaths, not swear them!" she spat out. A wind picked up, howling through the hall and rattling the cups where they lay. Glass shattered in the windows, and Ironborn lords cried out as they were dusted with broken crystals.

"By whose right do you rule?" asked Damphair, his voice low and urgent. He didn't look at me, didn't dare meet my gaze. He showed the proper respect. This pleased me. A voice in the back of my head cried out in horror, but it was as small as a mortal so I ignored it.

He dropped to one knee, placing a hand on the small of his niece's back and whispering in her ear. "By whose name have these oaths been sworn? Whose will binds the fealty of these men to your line? Asha, think! You cannot spurn God in front of all his people."

Asha stared at the floor in silence. At long last, she lifted her head to glare at me.

"I, Asha the Greyjoy, Lady Reaper of Pyke, swear by the drowning of your father our Lord God," she began, and then hesitated.

I held my hand in the air between them. Asha looked at it, and then flinched as I turned my palm and curled the fingers closed. The air shifted. Light came from between the closed digits for a heartbeat, and then I was holding Anaklusmos, golden and resplendent with an inner fire. I pointed the length of deadly metal at the ground, and then stabbed it downwards. The sword bit six inches deep into the dais before I let it go.

The blade of celestial bronze stood upright between me and Asha, and her eyes shone bright with the reflection of firelight on the sword's planed surface. She looked to Damphair, her face pale. He squeezed her hand, and muttered in her ear. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and then leaned forwards to kiss the sword at the juncture of haft and tang.

She opened her eyes again, and when she continued speaking her voice was strong. She left one hand on Anaklusmos, her touch light and fearful. She rested her fingers on the sword's hilt but didn't curl them around to grasp it.

"And by the holy bronze that I hold, to give you piety and pledge my faith to the house of the Drowned God. If ever my hand shall be raised against you in rebellion, I ask that this holy bronze shall pierce my heart."

I smiled, then, and lifted the cup to my lips. It was mostly empty, but a waterspout rose from the base of the vessel and it refilled itself. I tipped it back, and a cool, sweet liquid poured into my mouth. And then I reached down to Asha, and lifted her back to her feet. She flinched at my touch, and then steeled herself. My lips moved. Her eyes widened.

I could not hear my words.

Then I brought the cup to Asha's mouth, and she drank. The tension of her stance vanished, limbs easing and facial muscles going slack. She exhaled, and all the turmoil left her in that one long breath.

I touched my fingers to the centre of Asha's forehead, and then stepped to one side.

When my feet left the dais I was myself again.

It took all of my concentration to stop myself from staggering as my mind grew back into existence. Clarity appeared as suddenly as it had gone. I recalled what had happened, how right that imperious and powerful presence had felt, but that wasn't who I was. That wasn't how I felt, or acted.

A cold dread rose in the pit of my stomach. I made my way to the nearest bench, intending to flop down on it, but it had been knocked onto its side. I picked it up and took my seat.

I wanted to vomit. The hall seemed too small, too crowded. I fought off the urge to bury my head in my hands. I forced myself not to collapse in a heap on the bench, to roll off it and hide beneath a table. How could I hide? Lodos was inside me.

Only then did I look around and saw the hall was in disarray, tables upturned and men fallen. Glass lay in piles everywhere there had been windows, now gaping wounds in the walls. The earth had been shaking, I realised. I had been shaking the keep almost to dust, and had never noticed - all for no more reason than the local leader's unwillingness to kneel to me. Why should Asha kneel? I had set things in motion, but she ruled here, not me.

Some part of me disagreed and felt I belonged at the top of the food chain, beyond the strictures of mortal laws and hierarchies.

I shuddered.

That buried part of instinct and power had acted through me today. Something alien and familiar, all at once. I felt a hundred pairs of eyes burning through me, but then Damphair whacked his cudgel against the floor for attention and bellowed for Eddard the Stark to come up.

There was a murmuration of conversation through the hall, and Damphair shouted again before the ceremony moved on. Reluctantly the Ironborn slid back into the rhythms of their ritual, but I saw dozens of them turning heads to sneak glances at me.

Theon's gaze was especially furious.

As the men shuffled forwards, and they haltingly repeated their oaths, I tried to understand what had just happened to me.

I'd seen the image of Lodos suspended in the future which lay before me, but it was always an intangible, misty thing. I had taken it for a warning, for a little piece of foresight a hundred steps below true prophecy. Fortune-telling was the province of a haruspex or an oracle, after all, not a demigod like me.

For the first time, I tried to focus on it. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that shadowy form.

Cold tendrils of shadow clung around me. My breath caught. Icy fingers touched the back of my neck. I heard waves crash in the distance, and felt the great weight of the earth in my hands.

I remembered the time I had taken the burden of the sky from the titan Atlas. I had held the colossal weight of the heavens in my own hands. It had been an impossible task. The weight had nearly crushed me. Every moment was an agony, the pressure some unknowable intensity from the other side of infinity.

The shadow of Lodos was heavier.

I bowed my head, screwing my eyes even tighter closed like a child wishing away a monster. I clenched my hands, trying not to shake under the terrible pressure.

"Dad," I whispered. "Please."

A seagull called out, somewhere in the sky over the keep. My eyes opened on reflex at the noise, my head turning to glance out one of the high windows just in time to spot a white winged shape flit past.

The pressure was gone.

I sighed.

"Tonight," I said, making a promise to myself and to Poseidon. "I'm going to come find you tonight, Dad."

I forced myself to look back over to Asha. I felt bad for undermining her authority in front of all her bannermen like this. I hadn't intended to do it. I hadn't meant to do any of that. I doubt she'd accept the excuse that Lodos did it and not me, though.

I'd been able to ignore it to some extent so far, but whatever was going on with Lodos was getting to be a problem. Losing control in battle was one thing. It was even fairly normal for my extended family. Berserker rages and bloodlust were standard operating procedure, even for some of the demigods who weren't descended from Ares. Well, maybe not quite that far, but it wasn't unheard of. Same with inexplicable dizzy spells. Hello, low blood pressure? We've all had to skip lunch sometimes.

Having an Ironborn mirror of yourself reach across the firmament of your soul and work you like a puppet was a bit more than I was willing to accept.

I really hoped that this was normal. Hopefully Dad would have an explanation for all of this.

Demigod puberty was bad enough the first time.

Eddard Stark and his companion swore oaths of friendship. They were similar in wording to the oaths sworn by the Ironborn, but made no promises of fealty or obedience. That made sense for Stark, and I suspected the other man was one of his own bannermen. Stark wouldn't have come here without guards to accompany him, but only lords were allowed in the hall for the ceremony.

Bringing a loyal lord along to watch his back would have been a very wise move if Balon had been the one presiding over the oath-taking ceremony. Less necessary with Asha at the helm, but probably still a prudent caution to take when surrounded by Ironborn.

The crowd was half-watching me as much as the ceremony for those two men, but as soon as Theon was called up, I was no longer the most interesting thing in the room. I felt a peculiar mix of relief and worry.

Any conflict which ensued here was of my making. I was the one who had killed Balon. I was the one who had named Asha as Lady Reaper, bringing her ahead of Theon in local precedence. I stood by my actions, but they could cause trouble.

Baerag had filled my ears with tales of bastard rebellions and Blackfyres in the quiet of evenings when my crew and I sat together. He was the only one who had much energy left for speaking after our training. I was pushing them hard, harder than the other captains around here would ever push their men to train. I'd only half paid attention to him, so I couldn't recite the stories in any particular detail, but I'd caught the gist. People died when thrones went to the wrong heir.

Olympus wasn't hung up on which kid was born first. Gods and titans tended to obsess a bit more closely over which generation you belonged to. Kronos swallowed his children to prevent any of them from inheriting his rule, and I wondered if Balon would have been the same if he'd been immortal.

Once his oath was sworn, Stark took a seat on the same bench as me. He gave me an unreadable look, and then turned his face away to watch his bannerman swear the same words he had just spoken.

The bannerman joined us, and leaned close to Stark to whisper to him. Stark nodded gravely, but held his tongue. His full attention was on his young ward, on Theon Greyjoy.

The prodigal Greyjoy climbed up onto the dais when it was his turn, not waiting for his uncle Damphair to call out his name.

Theon stared at Asha. Asha stared back. There was a sneer on his face, but he knelt. I heard Stark let out an audible breath, and his man swore in surprise.

"Gods be praised," his bannerman said. "Looks like he actually listened to you, my lord."

"The old gods and the new," agreed Stark.

"I, Theon Greyjoy, swear by the drowning of our Lord God and the holy iron that I hold, to give you fealty and pledge my loyalty to our house of the name Greyjoy," shouted Theon. The boy was obviously not used to public speaking. He managed to pitch it loudly enough, but was going for a dramatic intonation and ended up just bellowing like a sailor trying to be heard over a howling gale.

I could see by the grimace on his face that he realised his mistake, but he steamed on ahead regardless, determined not to give way from his course.

"If ever my hand shall be raised against you in rebellion," he continued, kissing the blade of a fine longsword marked with a carven wolf's head for its pommel. "I ask that this holy iron shall pierce my heart."


End file.
